


Caught in the Crosshairs

by Rivie_writes



Series: How Far We've Come [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, F/F, F/M, I have a love/hate relationship with gideon, It's gonna show in this, M/M, Or worse?, Some smut will be had, We might actually get to see what hector was really up to, also there is some depression, fluffy dancing, things will get dark in this one as well, things with ford get better, you'll just have to wait and see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-09-08 01:29:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8824762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivie_writes/pseuds/Rivie_writes
Summary: Fall is here in Gravity Falls, and everyone has finally started living the way they intended to before Hectorgon had interjected and ruined everything at the beginning of summer.Old wounds are starting to heal up and the twins are working passionately towards their goals, with the support of the town behind them.It's amazing how five simple words can throw a peaceful world out of balance. "I love you, Bill Cipher."Sequel to Tale of a Tangled MindINDEFINITE HIATUS If you would like a reason, hit me up on my tumblr, which you can find in my bio





	1. Life is Looking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's back! The long awaited sequel to Tale of a Tangled Mine, which I highly recommend you read first if you haven't already!

It was a quiet morning at the pool house on a cool autumn day. The leaves were browning and the air was crisp. People were saying that they were going to have an early winter this year in this sleepy, peaceful Oregon town.

That was until two voices reverberated throughout the home.

“STOP HIM! He’s mad with power! Don’t let him push that button!”

“Aw, c’mon! It’s not like the world is going to end!”

“Yes it is, you don’t even know what you’re doing!”

“I’ve made my choice and there is nothing you can do to stop me! I’m sorry.”

“Nooo!”

 _Click_. **Thank you Dipper Pines, your order will arrive in 5 to 7 business days.**

Dipper snickered after he pressed the button on his phone, but was cut off when Mabel couldn’t lose her momentum from chasing him around the pool house and tackled him to the ground.

“Bro! Why did you do that? You’re going to fill this house up with your nerd stuff and then how will I work?” Mabel whined as she stood up and dusted herself off. “Oh yeah, because it’s not like the house isn’t completely covered in glitter and fabric,” Dipper complained, taking a moment to catch his breath on the ground.  Mabel’s tackle really knocked the wind out of him.

A bang sounded from upstairs and in a matter of moments, Bill was downstairs holding out two different bowties, comparing them. “The world’s ending? Geez, at least give a guy a formal invitation, I’m not even in my best suit for that kind of party and why is Pine Tree on the floor?” Bill asked, trailing off from his previous point.

“Because he’s a big nerd!” Mabel complained. “He just bought a DD&MD set with a bunch of figures from Amazon.”

Bill tilted his head in confusion as he held a hand out to help Dipper up. “Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons,” Dipper said as he grasped Bill’s hand, allowing the demon to help him up.

“Ah,” he said with a wry smile dulled eyes. A sure sign that he was judging him but not saying it out loud.

“Don’t ‘ah’ at me. It’s a good game,” Dipper defended. “Yeah, but who are you going to play it with?” Bill asked, giving him a cocky grin.

“I, um. I was going to see if Ford wanted to play,” Dipper admitted and both the demon and his sister gave him an astonished look. But the truth is Ford had slowly started reintegrating himself back into their lives over the course of the summer. When Bill was busy working between the Mystery Shack and Mabel’s store, Glam Slam, Ford would let him refer to his old notes on the supernatural and they even had a good little library going with a system that only either of them could decipher. Organized chaos, they called it.

But the fact of the matter was, Ford was finally starting to try and put his best foot forward and trying to be there for them. Not to mention Grunkle Ford and Stan were getting old. Really old. And Dipper didn’t want to feel animosity towards the man he used to look up to during his golden years. After a summer of mulling it over, the brunet finally, _finally_ decided to let Ford back in, carefully of course. If anything, playing a rousing game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons certainly wouldn’t hurt at least.

The summer left a lot of unanswered questions out in the open as well, and Ford seemed to be the only one who showed interest in helping Dipper figure them out, like teaching him different exercises to help Dipper get his memory back from five years ago or trying to pinpoint where Hector might have hid Dipper’s journal with the notes he had from five years ago. Sure, Bill and Mabel would help out if asked, but Mabel was so busy starting up her business that Dipper didn’t want to bug her, and Bill was flat out unconcerned now that Hector was out of the picture.

“Look, the only way things will get better is if I let them, okay,” was all Dipper said to defend himself before tucking his phone back into his pocket.

Mabel gave him a smile, “That’s right Brosky. C’mon, Bill. Soos and Melody have the Shack closed today, so you’re with me today.”

“Fine, fine,” Bill said lazily. Mabel started walking towards the door but Bill didn’t follow her. He turned around towards Dipper and pulled him in for a quick kiss before letting him loose to meet Mabel at her car.

Ever since the summer ended, a lot of things have changed. Soos and Melody brought their little daughter, Sophia, home, Dipper started work at the Sheriff’s Station, Mabel opened her business (which she proudly calls Glam Slam), and Bill started working between the Shack and Glam Slam to learn the ins and outs of running a human establishment, and last but not least, Stan and Ford have been enjoying retirement which suddenly got a lot easier since Hector’s out of the picture now.

Dipper sighed contently as he threw on his jacket. He didn’t exactly have to wear a uniform (thank goodness) but he bought a more official/professional looking jacket that he could pin his badge to. It was a collared, deep navy blue, button up jacket. It had pockets on the breast area and buttoned shoulder straps. It made his figure a little more pronounced so you could see his slightly lean frame that developed over a summer of working out with Bill instead of softer curves he had just started to gain.

Even though Bill didn’t flat out say it, Dipper knew that he had the best intentions when he started dragging the brunet to exercise. Bill would guide him through routines that would make him physically stronger rather than something simple like healthy cardio. Mabel had told Dipper about how Bill practically had a panic attack when he was shot through his shoulder earlier in the summer. Bill was genuinely worried for him and the thought made him smile.

He touched the spot on his bicep over his jacket, where he had a small triangular tattoo. Bill insisted on it after Hector’s defeat and the demon has a small Pine Tree underneath his collarbone. Most people make mistakes with getting couple tattoos, but Dipper took comfort in the fact that if he and Bill ever broke up he could easily change it into something else.  Not that they were heading in that direction. Surprisingly enough, they actually had a pretty balanced relationship so far (well, Dipper had a few concerns, but he had a plan for them). If Dipper had met Bill ten years ago after his defeat, there was probably no way in hell he’d even kind of consider being friends with the demon, let alone a romantic relationship. But after being on a boat with his Grunkles for ten years and being exposed to mankind directly, Bill mellowed out to some degree, mainly for self-preservation since if Bill’s human body dies before his power is completely returned, then he will disappear forever. His human vessel is just for gathering his energy back so he can maintain his triangular form later.  

A while ago, he had a deal (well, more like a lengthy, complicated contract) with Grunkle Stan and Ford that he would return to the Mindscape and leave this dimension alone completely in return for their guidance through being human. But unfortunately, Ford broke that contract when he made a deal with Hector five years ago to get rid of Bill and protect Dipper and Mabel but at a dark cost. Dipper had spent the past five years brainwashed and Bill was the only one who could see the strings guiding him and broke the bonds in his mind.

Dipper still had his memories missing from that time and Ford claims that he wasn’t sure what Dipper had discovered either. Hector claimed that he kept Dipper’s old journals floating around somewhere in Gravity Falls, but even after his vessel “disappeared” it was still nowhere to be found. Everyone was so sure that what Dipper had discovered all those years ago was that Bill was back and that Hector didn’t want the young Pines to spoil his revenge, but he had always felt like there was more to the mystery.

Dipper’s hand started to shake while he thought about this. He grabbed his wrist to stop the trembling. He closed his eyes and compartmentalized the images of Hector’s limp body covered in blood. He did what he had to do. He had no choice. Plus his vessel’s soul was already gone. There was no way to save him, regardless.

Dipper took a deep breath and let it out, his nerves slowly calming. He had to get to the Sheriff’s station to see if there were any cases for him to pick up, if not then he would do a quick patrol of the town and then check on  the creatures in the forest. Part of his job was to settle disputes between magical inhabitants. And in his spare time, he takes notes and pictures of them to write articles for a paranormal investigative website. He started a blog to put his findings on and he was recruited to get paid to write about the weird things he sees in Gravity Falls though he doesn’t disclose any more location info past south Oregon because he didn’t want mystery hunters disturbing the peace.

After a moment of calming himself down, Dipper grabbed his pine tree hat and his backpack before heading out the door.

\----------------------------------------------------

Mabel was ecstatic over how well her business was doing. Bill was a natural salesman and her new associate Miranda showed a lot of promise. Mabel really would have loved to take Marty and Clara from the Shack after the summer, but unfortunately they were still in high school so they had to quit at the end of summer anyway, though they agreed to pick up shifts every other weekend at Glam Slam.

Mabel kept her store stocked with a lot of unique items and kept her original clothes and products on a small feature shelf against one of the walls. She was exhausted, but happy. Paz was a big help too. She offered a lot of useful advice and when she had breaks from work she would come to Mabel’s shop and help out,  giving budgeting tips that she desperately needed because even though the weight Mabel’s name carried in Gravity Falls helped business, it was still all new to her and she needed to be prepared for eventual slowdown that could happen any week now, though there was a chance that a slowdown might not occur anytime soon.

Toby Determined came out and interviewed Mabel during her grand opening which of course turned into a disaster when the cameraman caught Bill kissing Dipper before going to help the customers so Toby had pulled her brother aside to ask about his lover and it just turned into a huge gossip story, but the town seemed to accept “William” as a suitable gentleman caller for Dip Dop. Certain townspeople were overprotective of the twins, but there hasn’t really been any issues since it didn’t impede on them living their lives.

The afternoon rush started dissipating slowly, leaving some breathing room. She considered sending Miranda on a lunch run when she heard the bell attached to the shop door ring and Dipper walked through it holding bags of Chinese food.

“Dipper! You didn’t have to do that!” Mabel said, running up to her brother to help him carry the bags. “Yeah, well I figured you guys would be hungry and I’m about to go do my rounds in the woods so I figured a lunch break is in order. I’m glad I caught you guys during a lull. Hey Bill, will you grab utensils from the break room?”

Bill scoffed, “Can’t you use chop sticks, Pine Tree?”

“No,” Dipper deadpanned and Bill rolled his eyes but went to the break room.

“Mabel, do you think you could give Bill Saturday off?” her brother whispered.

“What? That’s my busiest day!” Mabel protested, with a raised eyebrow.

“I know. I’m sorry. Just call Marty and Clara in if you can, but I’m planning a surprise,” Dipper pleaded. Dipper wasn’t usually one for planning romantic surprises. Actually she was sure he had problems bring romantic in general so this was a big step for her twin.

“Fine, Bro, but I expect details,” she snickered and Dipper averted his gaze. Whatever he was doing, he was being shy about it.

“Here’s your fork. Which one is mine?” Bill said tossing it at her brother and he fumbled for a moment before catching it by the prongs. “Thanks and this one,” Dipper said, pulling one of the little boxes out of one of the bags containing the spicy noodles Bill loved. He passed another box to Miranda saying, “I got you orange chicken since I wasn’t sure what you like.” Miranda smiled and said, “Hey, free lunch is a free lunch.”

Mabel picked up the last remaining box and the four of them started eating and chatting, Bill and Miranda alternating to get up to help customers. While it was Miranda’s turn at the register Dipper dropped a bomb. “I’m thinking about moving into town.”

“What?!” both Mabel and Bill exclaimed.

“Calm down, it’s just a thought. But the drive is forty-five minutes to town and I’m starting to make money, so it makes sense that I try to rent a place close to where I work, right?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Mabel pouted. “Actually, if you wanted, the three of us could rent a house together?”  Dipper suggested looking between Mabel and Bill.

Bill simply shrugged as he slurped his noodles. “Cool with me. Not that it matters since I can get anywhere in no time at all,” he worded carefully. No one in town knows about Bill so he doesn’t talk about his powers in public. Words like “teleportation” were definitely a must avoid.

Mabel lolled her head back in forth in thought. How soon would he want to move out?  She has her crafts area set up just right so she could work at home. There would be too much pressure if she were suddenly switch homes since she had just gotten into the routine of things.

“I don’t think I could handle moving right now, Dipper. I’m already busy enough with all of this,” she said gesturing around here. “I don’t think I could handle moving my creative home base right now.”

He gave her a small, but disappointed smile, “Ah, that’s fine then. I don’t mind the drive.”

Mabel scoffed. “Bro, if you want to move out you can. We lived apart during college and it’s not like you want to move cities. Plus if you get a house, it’ll give me a closer place to crash at when I work late nights,” she added with a wink.

Dipper tilted his head, “Are you sure? Because-“

“Bro. It’s fine. And who knows, maybe once things settle down with the business and I’m completely out of the red, I’ll have the time and resources to move in,” she said with a smile. She didn’t mind their independence from each other, but she was so glad that Dipper still wanted her to be part of his life. She had messed up all those years ago and she’s been doing her best to make it up to him since.

“Okay. Bill? What do you think?” Dipper asked.  He looked like he was suddenly feeling nervous. Holy sugar cookies! Dipper was asking his boyfriend to move in with him. Well, “move in” is a bit of a stretch since they already pretty much live together. Sure, Bill still had his room inside the main mansion, but he practically stayed every night with them in the pool house.

“Sure thing, kid,” Bill said with a cocky smile. “G-good. Good,” Dipper said, suddenly standing up. “We’ll start checking ads online tonight. I’m going to go finish my patrol,” he spoke quickly with a silly, lovesick grin plastered on his face. He almost backed into a clothes rack, but Miranda pushed his shoulder to get his attention. “Ah, sorry. Don’t forget about that favor, Mabes,” he called as he started walked forward to the door.

“No worries, Brosky,” Mabel called back, containing her giggles as she cleaned up their lunch from the counter. Bill gave her a curious look, “What favor, Shooting Star?”

“That’s a secret,” she said before sticking her tongue out. Bill huffed, but went to greet the next customer while Miranda took the rest of her portions to the break room so she could finish them uninterrupted now that Bill and Mabel were back on the floor.

Mabel watched Bill interact with the customer. She could hardly believe that the dream demon that nearly killed them ten years ago was the thing that’s keeping her brother happy now.

Well, it wasn’t a too farfetched of a notion since the girl who used to bully her ten years ago is what’s making _her_ happy right now. Mabel pulled out her phone to send Paz  a quick text about their plans next week. They had a lot of scheduling conflicts, but they were both patient and making it work.

Mabel smiled to herself before putting her phone back into her back pocket to greet the next customer.

\-------------------------------------

“Shooting Star, what the hell is up with this schedule?” Bill asked, feeling the annoyed twitch on his eyebrow. Shooting Star had given Bill Saturday off. The busiest day of the week and the best chance to make his weight in money off of commissions.

“Oh, Marty and Clara wanted a shift so I gave you a day to rest. Don’t make that face, you need it!” Shooting Star insisted and Bill touched his face. He had small bags forming under his eyes from not being able to balance two jobs and proper time to socialize with other humans, especially with Pine Tree.

 He did feel tired and was a little excited at the prospect of having the weekend off. Pine Tree usually didn’t work weekends unless he was working a case, in which Bill would be nosy and force the brunet to let him in on it anyway. These repetitive days were taking a toll on him and he was slowly growing bored. The summer had some excitement to it, but now that he fell into the daily grind that normal humans fell into he was getting restless.

The only thing keeping him going is Pine Tree. Pine Tree had stayed by his side when no one else would and they had developed a sense of loyalty to each other. A form of trust that couldn’t be broken. Staying by the kid’s side has given Bill comfort in his human days. After all, they each had plenty of chances at the beginning of summer to leave each other for dead. Hell, Bill even resisted using the kid to his advantage because of the deal he had with the geezers and freed him from his brainwashing.

But they had each other’s backs and that was something Bill could never find in anyone else. They had a relationship humans considered to be romantic which is what humans pursue when they decide that they don’t want to die alone. Frankly, Bill would embrace the day his body naturally passes because it means getting his powers back but Pine Tree was proving to be an excellent companion until that day (which is at least another sixty years away) comes.

“Fine, Shooting Star. I’ll take this day of rest, mainly because it’s your loss anyway,” Bill stated, disinterestedly. Shooting Star rolled her eyes and went back to counting money in the office. Normally he would wait for her, but a thought popped in his head.

“I’m going to head back first, okay?” Bill said and before she could say anything he teleported back to the pool house into the kitchen where Pine Tree was stirring something in a pot with one hand while on the phone with the other.

“Yes. Thank you for getting this last minute for me. Okay, I’ll talk to you then,” he said before hanging up and sighing.

Bill silently stepped behind him and leaned in to whisper in his ear, “So who are you so thankful to?” The results were as intended. Pine Tree jumped around and would have smacked Bill with the hot ladle if he didn’t catch Pine Tree’s wrist first.

“Geez, don’t sneak up on me while I’m cooking,” Pine Tree complained before trying to pull his arm away but Bill pulled him into a deep kiss. Pine Tree struggled for a small moment before leaning into the kiss a little more comfortably. When Bill broke it, he gave Pine Tree a smirk and said, “We have about an hour before your sister gets home. How about we make use of that time?”

“Bill, I’ve already started dinner,” Pine Tree deadpanned and Bill turned up the charm by giving him a sultry look and planted small kisses on his neck. “It’s not going anywhere. C’mon, we’ve been so busy that it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve. Gotten. To. Mark. You,” he whispered between kisses and nipped at his skin for the last few words. One thing he learned about Pine Tree is that although he likes switching things up, his usual preference is to be handled roughly. Though on nights when he’s stressed out, the demon lets him take control.

Pine Tree shivered at his touches, but still pushed Bill away. He could see the urge to give into temptation heavy in his eyes but he fought it back with logic, “Yes it will still be here, but it’ll burn and we won’t have anything to eat.”

“Fine, but you owe me later,” Bill said, flashing his eyes blue but Pine Tree shrugged it off and went back to working on the meal. Bill sat down at their little kitchen table and propped his feet up in one of the other chairs as he observed.

“So, who was that you were on the phone with,” Bill asked. “O-oh, um. Just someone who’s going to rush order that DD&MD set I ordered,” Pine Tree ended the sentence smoothly but had a rocky start. “Are you sure it’s not lies you’re cooking up over there, Pine Tree?” Bill asked as he lazily leaned back in his chair.

“I’m pretty sure this is pasta. Unless the package lied to me, then I guess I could be a liar by default, but would that really be my fault then?” Pine Tree rambled. Some of Bill’s fast talking rubbed off on him but the kid wasn’t nearly as good as Bill was. “So are you saying that the pasta might be and impasta?” Bill snickered and Pine Tree gave him a look that said he was ready to throw that hot ladle at Bill.  

 The two chatted and laughed as Pine Tree cooked and dinner was ready just a few minutes before Shooting Star arrived home. The three of them sat down to dinner before Shooting Star went to her room and workspace to finish some special ordered garments to put in the store and Pine Tree said he had to finish writing an article for that website.

Bill sat in the living room alone and blankly stared at the TV. Being alone was one of the things Bill hated the most, but watching TV alone was the worst. It’s almost exactly how he spent his time in the Mindscape. Alone and watching. At least he could mess with the people he was watching sometimes, but he couldn’t even do that here.

A few moments later the sound of footsteps padding down the stairs caught his attention. Pine Tree was already in his sweatpants and a t-shirt when he came into the living room. “Oh, hey. I just remembered that my article isn’t due til Friday. Did you want to check the online ads for rental homes with me?” he asked, holding out a hand to help Bill off of the couch.

Bill gave the kid a wide grin and took his hand. “Sure thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sidenote: Snowed Inn will be a little delayed in an update because of some really sad things that happened this past weekend. I was actually going to update it Friday, and start posting this next weekend, but as Caught in the Crosshairs is prewritten and Snowed Inn is not, and I could bring myself to get any work done this weekend so I chose to post this instead. I'll start updating both in the upcoming weekend, so don't you worry! And to make up for it, here is a Winter-y Bill and Dipper for you guys. <3 
> 
> http://purplerivulets.tumblr.com/post/154186122675/after-beginning-snowed-inn-which-you-can-read


	2. C'Mon

Gideon leaned back in his chair and brushed in platinum bangs out of his face. His hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail instead of coifed into some big over-gelled hairdo like he did back in the day. He wore a bright blue button up with the sleeves rolled up, the shirttail tucked into a pair of khakis.

He stood up and stretched, needing to move around. Gideon had gone undisturbed in his father’s old home since he arrived to Gravity Falls about a month and a half ago. He’s kept his eye out for weird things going on, but nothing outside of the usual weird things were happening.

If he was going to figure where Bill Cipher is, he was going to have to go around town and make his presence known, much to his dismay. He wanted to catch that wretched demon off guard.

Gideon had started to suspect Bill’s presence about five years ago, when a tropical storm disappeared from every weather radar. At first, his parents tried to get him to shrug it off as a freak occurrence, but Gideon knew that Cipher was the only being that had enough power to do that or else this world would be in shambles by now. And even if it Cipher wasn’t the cause of it, whatever it was still needed to be researched.

It would be a few more years before he got anything of substance to go by. He had small tidbits here and there, but nothing directly related to Cipher. Just random readings and power surges across the globe that meant absolutely nothing separately. But it gave him time to focus on other things and he did indeed get his life together and made a few pretty pennies with his research. Actually, he had the whole Bill Cipher subject on a back burner that was recently ignited by an anonymous letter. One that told him all the answers he were seeking would be in Gravity Falls, upon the Pines’ return.

It took him a little while to settle his affairs, but he couldn’t risk letting this opportunity pass him up, even if it would end up being a waste of time. At first he planned on staying out of sight, keeping tabs on the news and checking out the surrounding areas without drawing any attention to himself to keep the element of surprise, but now it seems that he must integrate himself back into the community if he wanted to get anywhere. The “Never Mind All That” Act keeps all the juicy details out of the news, like how that mysterious illness that swept the town before Gideon’s arrival was cured. There was definitely a supernatural smell to that story.

But lately all the news focuses on are human interest stories, such as Mabel Pines opening her new store or interviewing Dipper about his love life. There was nothing of substance to be found in newspaper articles either.

Perhaps it was time see if there was anything weird going on in the forest. That’s where a lot of creatures of Gravity Falls like to hide out. Maybe interrogating the forest dwellers would be his saving grace so he could avoid the townsfolk.

\--------------------------------------------------------

Dipper rubbed his eyes and suppressed a yawn. Just two more days until he can surprise Bill. Dipper wasn’t naïve, he knew that Bill was getting bored lately. He could see it in the demon’s eyes, though Bill hasn’t said anything about it. It’s obvious Bill cared for him, even in subtle ways, but this is a demon whose life revolved around wreaking havoc in his heyday, so Dipper sometimes felt a little self-conscious, like one day he would be boring to Bill and he would leave him.

During the summer, they had a lot of good moments. A lot of Scapbookortunities as Mabel would call it. As a matter of fact, she had an entire scrapbook dedicated to their summer of fun. But now they had to get back to real life. Everything was pretty peaceful, outside of a few disagreements between the creatures wandering the woods, but everything had calmed down since Dipper started keeping tabs on everyone. They’ve accepted him as a fair mediator to their problems and there hasn’t really been a threat lately.

So life was peaceful and predictable for the time being.

_Smack!_

Dipper jumped back and rubbed his shoulder. When he looked up, his surprised gaze was met with a set of equally confused eyes that turned gleeful in recognition.

“Oh my stars! Well if it isn’t Dipper Pines!” an extremely familiar southern accent spoke.

“Gideon!” Dipper was shocked to see Gideon of all people here. He hasn’t seen him since they banded together to defeat Bill.

Gideon held out his hand and Dipper took it, pulling him into a half hug and stepped back. Gideon and Dipper had kept contact briefly after Weirdmageddon, but he was one of the few that had fallen off the radar with him since he left Gravity Falls. Mabel still wasn’t fond of Gideon, but Dipper was more than eager to try and help him better himself after the end of that fateful summer. Gideon had been a pain in their asses but in the end, he wanted to make the right choices, so who was Dipper to turn his nose up when he asked for help?

“What have you been up to? We haven’t talked in, like,” Dipper started.

“Almost nine years now?” Gideon finished. “Nothing much, really. As you know, shortly after Weirdmageddon, my life was uprooted and my parents moved us to Louisiana to be closer to our relatives.”

Gideon and Dipper sat down on some tree stumps as his former frenemy talked about some of the things he went through over the years. His mother got sick and passed away about three years ago, his father refuses to remarry but has recently started dating again. Gideon himself has grown up and used his smarts to earn him money and he even got himself a girlfriend named Yolanda in Louisiana.

“So what brought you back to Gravity Falls?” Dipper asked, curious to see why he left his comfortable life for a visit to this sleepy town.

“It’s hard to say,” is all he responded with. “Could you do me a small favor though? Don’t tell anyone I’m back.”

Dipper twisted his mouth to suppress his surprise but nodded. People were entitled to their privacy and Dipper doesn’t exactly get a lot of that anymore since everyone knows he’s back.

“Sure, I’ll keep it a secret, but can I ask why?”

Gideon’s face scrunched as if he really wanted to say why, but he responded, “Can I tell you later?”

“Yeah. Um, here,” Dipper grabbed his pen that was wedged in his ear and tore out the last page of his notebook to write his number down on. “Call me if you run into any trouble. I’m kinda part of the law enforcement, sort of?”

Gideon chuckled and took the paper, “Will do, Officer Pines.”

\---------------------------------

It was a fine Friday afternoon when Bill and Pine Tree considered at the brick house in front of them. It wasn’t nearly as big as the pool house, but it was nice three bedroom, two bath home with a sizable living room, and although the kitchen wasn’t as big as Pine Tree would like, the kid seemed pretty attached to it since the renter is giving him a huge discount because of his town hero status.

“So we looked through the house and I’m pretty happy with the inside, and we even have a fenced in yard. So Waddles will have a place to romp around if Mabel brings him over. What do you think?” Pine asked.

“If you like it, let’s get it,” Bill replied. He spent ten years cramped on a boat with two old geezers, so even though he had become accustomed to the Northwest Manor, this place was still a luxury in comparison. And anyplace was better than being in the Mindscape.

“But do _you_ like it, is what I’m asking.” Pine Tree spoke with a quirked eyebrow. “Why are you so eager to get out of the pool house? You have comfort, space, and you’re staying for free. Shouldn’t you be milking that?”

Pine Tree rubbed stuck on hand in his pocket and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “It’d just be easier on me down here instead of the House on Haunted Hill wannabe up there. If the commute is shorter, that’s more time I have to spend with you. I could get my articles and journal entries done before you get off work and we could actually do something with our evenings.”

Bill tilted his head. He did like the sound of that and enjoyed the fact that the kid had prioritized Bill in his decision to move out. The demon gave Pine Tree a smirk and said, “Then this place is perfect.”

Pine Tree’s face lit up like he was covered in Christmas lights and he extolled, “Great! I’ll tell them to draw up the lease papers and we’ll go sign them on Monday, before work.”

“Shooting Star gave me tomorrow off. We should probably go buy some furniture if we’re moving in this soon,” Bill suggested.

“Ah, well, I, uh, actually have other plans for us,” Pine Tree said.

“Oh? Well don’t leave me in suspense,” Bill said, grabbing Pine Tree’s hand to lead him back to the car.

“It’s a surprise,” the kid stated before sliding into the driver’s seat (since they still don’t trust Bill behind the wheel, which is damn insulting).

Bill closed the passenger door after crawling into his side. “Color me intrigued, Pine Tree! You actually kept something a secret from me.”

Pine Tree looked a little smug as he snickered, “Don’t worry, you’ll find out what it is tomorrow.”

Bill leaned his seat back lazily and rested his hands behind his head. “I’m looking forward to it. If there’s anyone who could surprise me, it’s you, kid.” The demon meant those words too. Pine Tree was the only one on this puny planet that was worth his time anymore. After Hector’s betrayal and lack of communication with his henchminions, Pine Tree had been the only one who kept any loyalty to him.

And he was going to hold onto that for as long as he could.

\--------------------------------------------

The next day, Dipper was pretty stoked about his plan. He woke up earlier than anyone else in the pool house (incidentally) and was humming a quiet tune as he read the newspaper and sipped his coffee. There wasn’t much going on in town at the moment. There’s going to be a small fair in the center of town next week, which Dipper will be on patrol at and Mabel and Paz were making plans to go have a good time.

Dipper was just about finished with is coffee when Mabel bounced into the kitchen, fully dressed and ready for the day. Ever since she opened her store, she’s dressed a little more professionally, but every outfit still had a Mabel twist to it. Her jackets were bedazzled, her dress shirts had glitter on the collars, and her dress pants were a different outrageous colors (today is purple), but she started wearing wedges or thick heels instead of slips. She even started keeping her hair in a ponytail, with either ribbons or scrunchies.

“You’re up early,” Dipper commented as he put his mug in the sink. “Yeah, I gotta get some accounting paperwork done before we open since _someone_ wants to get all lovey-dovey with my best salesman,” she teased.

“Hey, he was my boyfriend before he was your employee. I have dibs,” Dipper pestered back.

“So, what do you have planned for today?” Mabel asked, leaning in.

“I’ll tell you later. I don’t want him to eavesdrop and ruin everything,” Dipper mumbled. He was already nervous that Bill wouldn’t like what he had planned. He at least wanted the disappointment to be in the moment if that was the case.

“You better, Bro-Bro. I want the deets later,” Mabel announced. “Don’t say deets. Say details like everyone else,” Dipper added with a slight cringe.

“Deets, deets, deets,” Mabel sing-songed before grabbing her keys. “I’ll catch ya later.”

“Okay. We probably won’t be back tonight, so you’ll have the place to yourself,” Dipper informed her so she wouldn’t be surprised when the house was empty.

She gave a quick nod and said, “Okie dokie, Brosky,” and walked out the door.

Dipper smiled to himself for a moment before padding up the stairs to wake Bill. Dipper had been working at his desk a lot lately, so last night he fell asleep while working to get his research submitted into his own personal database so he was free to dedicate the weekend to Bill so the demon wasn’t stirred by him getting up early this morning.

Bill wasn’t asleep in Dipper’s bed, like usual so Dipper checked the guest bedroom. He wasn’t there either.

“Bill?” he called out, heading back downstairs. He walked into the living room and was getting ready to call the demon to see where the hell he was when a pair of hands poked either of his sides (exactly where he was ticklish too) and the brunet jumped forward, making a weird “Haaaaauuggh” noise that was somewhere between laughing and screaming.

When Dipper turned around, he saw Bill clutching his sides, laughing. “Oh man, can you make that noise for me again, Pine Tree? I need to record it!”

“Never in a million years,” Dipper protested, regaining his composure and (hopefully) some dignity. “I can wait a million years for that. I’ve waited longer for other things, but that will actually be worth the wait.”

Dipper shook his head and started pushing Bill towards the door, who was still catching his breath from laughing. “C’mon, I got breakfast planned for us, you asshat.”

Dipper took Bill to a small hole-in-the-wall bakery he stumbled upon accidentally during his patrol route. They had really good coffee and had these huge boxes of pastries leftover from the night before that they sold for only a couple of a bucks for whoever came in and got them first.

They both dug into the pastries, but even between the two of them, they didn’t even put a dent in the box which was Dipper’s intention so they would have breakfast tomorrow morning as well.

After their little breakfast date, Dipper was ready to show Bill where they would be staying. He didn’t tell the demon yet, but there was a small ice chest with food and a backpack with clothes and some other supplies in the trunk of his car for an overnight trip.

“So was that the surprise, Pine Tree?”

“Not telling.”

“C’mon, I’m dying here. It literally took all my willpower to not pester you about it,” Bill said pointedly.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get to the surprise soon enough. But for now we’re going for a hike-“

“A hike?! It’s freezing out,” Bill whined.

“It’s only like sixty-five degrees. It’s barely chilly right now,” Dipper defended.

“Says the man that hasn’t spent the last ten years sailing around the tropics,” Bill pouted. “Why don’t you tell me where we’re going and I’ll teleport us?”

“Because teleportation makes me queasy and it’ll ruin the surprise. I promise it’s not far,” Dipper assured as he put the car in park at the entrance to the campground side of the forest.

Bill huffed but nodded in acceptance. “Fine, but I’m expecting recompense for my misery.”

Dipper just rolled his eyes as he got out of the car. Of course the demon would demand more even though this outing was planned specifically for him. He grabbed the backpack from the trunk and noticed something that might work for Bill’s compensation.

“Here,” Dipper offered his old blue hoodie he wore during the summer. Bill hesitantly grabbed for it, but the moment it was in his possession, he slid it on without any reluctance. “You’ve been holding out on me, kid. This things warm!”

They trekked through the woods for a good hour and a half, Bill either complaining or jawing about something interesting along the way when they finally came across a cozy cabin. It was quaint, but perfect for a one night stay.

“This is where we’ll be staying tonight. It has a wood burning stove so I can cook for us,” Dipper said as he opened the door.  Inside there was a full size bed, a small half bathroom, and a kitchenette with two stools up against the wall next to a table that folded into the wall.

“Oh, so this isn’t a murder shack? That’s less exciting. Unless you plan on murdering me after dinner, then that’d be exciting,” Bill jested(?).

Dipper shook a little at the word murder, but pressed those feelings down. He wasn’t going to think about Hector or that whole bloody situation at all this weekend. This was to get away and breath and maybe to a little feet sweeping while he was at it.

“I have some sandwiches for lunch in the ice chest if you’re hungry,” Dipper deflected to change the subject. “You’re going to need your energy, because we’re still not done hiking. The surprise is still one more mile away.”

Bill’s mouth twisted, as if he was about to start complaining again, but he closed it before plopping down on the bed. “How about a nap?”

“But it’s the middle of the afternoon. Don’t tell me you’re getting lazy,” Dipper retorted. “You didn’t come to bed last night. I didn’t sleep well,” Bill muttered.

Guilt strummed against Dipper’s heart. “Oh. Um, I guess a nap wouldn’t hurt. We probably don’t need to leave here til about four anyway,” Dipper replied, setting his bag down on the ground and crawled into bed next to Bill. Bill laid turned on his side, facing Dipper. His faux blue gaze tired. Bill had been working hard this past month and needed a good rest too.

The brunet kissed the blonde’s eyes and Bill pulled Dipper to his chest and rested his chin on top of his head. “Now I can sleep.”

\-------------------------------------------------------

Stan leaned back in his chair and sighed in frustration. He went through the trouble of digging around in their storage unit for the photo album his parents left them before passing away. They were filled with old pictures of Stan and Ford growing up, but nothing seemed to help Ford’s memory.

“Sorry Stanley, I just can’t seem to remember anything. Nothing from my time travelling dimensions either. Look, I’ve accepted the fact that I can’t remember our childhood, but we had a lot of good times these past ten years that I do remember. The only recent memory that’s fuzzy is that fight with Hector,” Ford said.

“You may be able to accept it, but I can’t,” Stan glowered. Seriously, who would be okay with not being able to remember their childhood? He at least wanted Ford to remember everything before their falling out.

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, “Yes, but trying to force me to remember is giving me migraines. It needs to come naturally and it needs to happen at its’ own pace. It’s not like the memory gun wiped my mind, this is flat out amnesia.”

Stan stood up. “If you went to a doctor first, this could have been avoided,” he shouted banging his fist on the table. The fact that Ford couldn’t even remember why they dreamed of travelling the world together was killing him.

“A doctor can’t cure amnesia, Stanley. They would say the same exact thing I just said. Let’s just be thankful I can function normally, okay? At least I didn’t forget basic things like how to use a spoon,” Ford huffed and Stan sat back down. “Fine. I guess we have that at least. I already potty trained a triangle dream demon, I should be thankful I don’t have to do that with you.”

“See? There’s a silver lining to everything,” Ford stated as he started carefully cleaning up the scrapbooks and stacked them neatly on the table.

“Yeah, I’m glad things are getting back to normal. The kids aren’t as distant from you as they were,” Stan noted out loud.

“Yeah. Dipper has been a huge help in organizing my research. I wouldn’t know what to do at all without his help,” Ford said with a smile.

Dipper has been coming to the mansion and helping Ford while Stan guided Mabel with her business. This is how things were supposed to be.

Stan couldn’t help but to smile at the fact that his family was finally coming back together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit late. I've been moving so writing and editing has been difficult for me. But I'm almost settled so I'll start posting regularly really soon! ^-^


	3. Colors of the Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hai, here's a smut warning with some light bondage. Like so light, you'd have to squint to see it. 
> 
> Updated: 2/7/17

Bill woke up to Pine Tree flinching and suddenly moving out of the bed.

“Shit!”

The kid was out of the bed and pacing the floor. The cabin was pitch black so Bill turned on the lantern next to the bed and checked his phone. They had slept until a little after nine.

“Pine Tree, calm down. It’s fine,” Bill said, stretching. That was the best sleep his body’s gotten in a while.

“I-I can’t. This was going to be perfect and now it’s dark and we can’t find it in the dark,” he spat in a frustrated tone.

“Do we need the daylight for whatever it is to have the same affect?” Bill questioned, standing up.

“Not necessarily, but it’ll be really hard to find without daylight. And I needed to-“ Bill held up his hand to cut Pine Tree off. “Kid, relax. Just point a direction and tell me how far it is and I’ll teleport us. Or if you have it on a map, I can use that as a reference.”

“U-um, it’s about two miles northeast,” Pine Tree said, looking flustered. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Just let me-“ Bill moved to cover Pine Tree’s eyes to make teleporting easier on him but the kid stepped back.

“Hold on, I need something,” he said, digging around in the backpack he brought. He shrugged his new jacket on since the cold came with the night and then grabbed something a little bulky that Bill couldn’t see well enough in flickering lantern light.

“Okay, okay. I’m ready,” Pine Tree said, standing up, clutching the object in a way that Bill still couldn’t tell what it was. The demon sauntered up to his lover and placed his hand over his eyes before teleporting them in the direction Pine Tree had previously stated.

He pulled his hand away from Pine Tree and stepped back when they arrived at a naturally formed rock trench. It looked as if it started off as a cavern but the top part had collapsed over time so you could still see the sky when you stepped in.

Bill gave Pine Tree a curious look. He already knew what the special secret about this place was, but he wanted to see what Pine Tree had planned for it.

“So, I’m sure you know what this place is,” Pine Tree said before stepping into the trench. Bill nodded. “Yes. It has a few magical quirks to it. When you make a noise, it echoes a certain color to the pitch the noise is in.”

The kid stepped into the opening of the trench and looked at Bill, violet-blues echoed around his head when he talked despite the darkness, “But I plan on doing something real special tonight.”

Pine Tree opened the flashlight widget on his phone gestured for Bill to join him deeper into the trench so the demon followed him inside until they were almost in the center of it, the only noise coming from their footfalls, greens and yellows pooling around their feet.

They stopped where there was a pretty large opening and Pine Tree wedged the object he was holding into the walls and stepped close to Bill before he turned off his flashlight.

“Remember how you wanted to show me how to dance but we never really found a lot of time?” Pine Tree said and Bill could see where he was because of the violet colors that danced around his head.

“Yes. It was a damn shame too,” Bill chided while greens danced around his own head. Bill was pretty disappointed that he never got to waltz with Pine Tree. Sure, they had been to a club a couple times and danced wasted (he had to remember to burn the incriminating photos Shooting Star had of them), but that was a completely different for what Bill had in mind.

Pine Tree messed with his phone for a moment and Strauss’s Blue Danube started reverberated throughout the rocky trench. He could clearly see the colors of the noise rebounding off of the cavern walls, colors resounded form what Bill figured was a speaker that Pine Tree wedged into the wall. It started with oranges, moving up to violets, then greens, before dropping back down to orange and eventually they were surrounded in several different hues.

When Bill focused his vision, He saw Pine Tree standing there with a hand extended to him, the colors vibrantly bouncing off of his silhouette. Bill took his hand and yanked Pine Tree forward towards him.

“I actually have a confession to make. I already know how to dance,” Pine Tree said, the purplish blues mixing into the other colors around them.

Bill placed his right hand on Pine Tree’s shoulder blade and the brunet placed his hand on Bill’s shoulder seam and they both held their arms up so their elbows would be at shoulder’s length before starting a simple box step.

“So you were holding out on me all this time, Pine Tree?” Bill asked, the specific greens from his voice mixing into the other greens a blues around them.

“Well, you really wanted to teach me so I didn’t want to ruin it by telling you that Mabes beat you to the punch a few years ago,” Pine Tree said as Bill initiated a turn. “Though, I normally led so this is different.”

They waltzed through the trench, the noises of their shoes scuffling through the vibrant colored soundwaves. Bill couldn’t help the wide grin on his face. He had been feeling restless lately. He had no goals. No end game anymore. In his omnipresent days, he spent his time and energy trying to get humanity to the point of opening a dimensional rift. It took a long ass time to get there, but Bill’s eternity felt shorter while waiting for that goal.

But now he has nothing. No hench-maniacs, no goals, no plots.

Just Pine Tree.

Bill twisted them into a quarter turn as the music sped up little by little, so Bill kept the pace of the music and Pine Tree stumbled a little bit before catching himself and caught back up to Bill’s pace.

Part of him hated that Pine Tree was all he had. After things cooled down with Hector, Bill decided to completely scrap his party plans. They didn’t deserve a party and Bill didn’t need his old minions anyway. Bill used so powerful and had nearly had everything he wanted in his grasp. If it wasn’t for the barrier, if it wasn’t for the family of Pines, he would have had exactly what he wanted.

Bill turned Pine Tree a little harder this time and the kid almost stumbled. He had a confused look on his face but kept going, trying his best to keep up with Bill.

The demon hadn’t dwelled on that fact for a while, but with nothing to look forward to, all of his thoughts wandered to the past and what could have been. When he was on the boat with the old geezers, there were day to day adventures but now he was stagnant. He was floating in an endless sea consistently thinking “what if” and “what now?”  

He felt a weird anger bubble in his chest when he thought about Pine Tree and Shooting Star working towards their goals while Bill stayed still. It felt like a race that he was losing.

This is when Pine Tree surprised him. The kid was getting fed up with Bill’s rough pace and he moved his hands and spun Bill around, putting him in the follower position. Pine Tree’s movements weren’t as elegant as Bill’s, but he kept a calming rhythm.

The violet sounds of their breathing getting heavier mixed into the orange and yellows around them. It was like dancing in paint that was constantly being splattered, but without the actual mess.

After everything that has happened and with their current situation, Pine Tree still wanted him at the end of the day. Bill had nothing to offer him or his family and by the time he would have unlimited power again they would most likely be dead. It didn’t make sense to Bill but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He would gladly continue accepting Pine Tree’s affections.

Music faded and they stopped moving, their purplish breaths were the only color in the air now.

It was quiet and the kid kept his head down. Bill wondered if he was too rough with his movement earlier. Though, he felt a small tingle when Pine Tree took control of their dance. It was as if the kid was aware of his inner turmoil and sought to ease his mind. If he actually knew _what_ was on his mind, of course he would try to calm Bill.

Pine Tree’s eyes met Bill’s. There was something about those chocolate brown orbs that he wanted to dig out and crawl into. Something about them offered safety and comfort in his lost state of mind.

 “I love you.” His voice was lowered so the colored soundwaves came out blue which was appropriate because those words _really came out of the blue._

Did he hear that right?

“What did you say?” Green.

Pine Tree turned his head sheepishly for a moment but then he looked at Bill straight on.

“I love you.”

Bill pushed Pine Tree until he was up against the rocks, reds and oranges flowing from the sound of his back hitting the wall.

“Agh,” Pine Tree called out, his voice up an octave so it matched Bill’s green soundwaves. “What the hell, Bill?”

Bill shook a little. “Say it one more time for me.”

Pine Tree tilted his head in the darkness and Bill could make out the silhouette of a confused smile. This was much like the first time Pine Tree had confessed his feelings for the demon.  Pine Tree probably thought Bill was insecure, but he just wanted to make sure this was happening.

No one had once said those words to him. Well, not like this. Naturally he had a cult worshipping him and vying for his attention in some obscure region in the world, but this was completely different.

He heard/saw Pine Tree breath out.

“I love you, Bill Cipher.”

 

Dipper Pines belongs to Bill Cipher. _He loves me. He loves me. He loves_ me. _Not my power. ME._

That one thought continuously resonated inside Bill’s mind.

 

Bill’s mouth met with Pine Tree’s and with a flash they moved from leaning up against the rocky wall of the trench to the smoother wall outside of the cabin. Pine Tree’s back hit the cabin and he let mumbled out a small noise of complaint into Bill’s mouth.

“B-Bill, wait. My speaker-“ he tried to complain.

Bill cut him off by deepening the kiss and letting his tongue explore the brunet’s mouth. He could feel Pine Tree sigh before he returned the kiss and lacing his fingers through Bill’s hair.

This heated moment was starting to warm up this chilly night. Bill slid his fingertips underneath Pine Tree’s shirt and coat to dig his nails into his waist.

Pine Tree muttered noises into Bill’s unrelenting mouth as he moved from his waist and ran one of his nails straight down his spine, directly over that car accident scar. He shivered and tightened his grip on Bill’s hair, pulling his mouth away from him.

Bill glowered down at Pine Tree, who looked like he could melt from the sheer ferocity of Bill’s vision. Bill needed to touch, to mark, to hold Pine Tree. Right the fuck now. 

“Let’s continue this inside,” Pine Tree whispered, a little breathless.

Bill bit the inside of his cheek and nodded, but his patience was extremely thin right now so he grabbed Pine Tree by his lapels and pulled him in for another rough kiss, keeping one eye open as he started walking him to the front door, biting and nipping at his lips as he slammed Pine Tree up against the door. After a bit of fumbling, Pine Tree managed to open the door and they practically fell into the room, Bill keeping a hand on the small of his back so the kid wouldn’t actually fall backwards.

Once they were stable again, Bill moved his hand to yank Pine Tree’s hair, forcing his head to turn, making exposing his neck for Bill to suck on while the other hand worked on unbuttoning the jacket. He could hear Pine Tree sucking in air through his teeth as he clutched at the hood of his old jacket that Bill was still wearing.

Bill went from simply sucking on his neck to clamping his teeth down on the skin and listened as his partner muttered out a quiet, “F-fuck,” in between breaths as he finally got him sliding out of his jacket. Pine Tree was probably already panting because of their dance, which would make it so much easier for Bill to have him crumbling beneath him.

Bill eased up on the nipping and opted for planting soft kisses down to his collarbone as he worked on unzipping the hoodie Bill was wearing and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. Bill was tempted to just use his magic to remove his own shirt, but the last time he did that, Pine Tree shyly complained, “Why did you do that? Part of the fun is taking your clothes off,” so Bill stopped doing that from that day on.

Luckily enough for him, it seemed that Pine Tree was a little impatient now as well because he went from fumbling with the buttons to taking a step back and lifting Bill’s collared shirt and undershirt over his head, leaving his chest exposed to the cold. Pine Tree moved forward and started nipping at Bill’s throat and trailed the small nibbles down to his collarbone to his shoulder, and when he reached the tendon between his neck and shoulder, the brunet bit down hard, causing Bill to want to rip his shirt off and claw at him, but he resisted and simply grabbed him by the shirt and spun them around the room to push him on the bed.

He slid between Pine Tree’s legs and as he slithered his hands up the brunet’s shirt, pushing the hem all the way up to his armpits and neck. Pine Tree adjusted his arms so Bill could pull the shirt off of him easily, but when the shirt reached his wrists, the demon tightened the shirt and tied a knot so Pine Tree’s hands would be bound. Pine Tree’s eyes widened with excitement and Bill’s fingertips traced over his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat.

Bill gave Pine Tree a sideways smirk and nibbled on his ribcage, earning a laugh from the other. “B-Bill, stop! You know that tickles and you know that’s a _turn off_ ,” Pine Tree whined, trying to convince Bill to stop.

Bill obliged, “Oh, but it’s so easy for me to turn you back on, just like a light switch,” he boasted as he unbuttoned Pine Tree’s jeans and slid and hand over his growing member in his boxers. After a small moment of rubbing, he felt Pine Tree’s cock grow in his hand.

“See?” Bill asked, knowing he wasn’t going to get a response as he moved back to remove Pine Tree’s pants from him completely. The other lifted his hips to accommodate Bill, and the demon removed his own trousers as well, since Pine Tree’s hands were, well, a bit tied up at the moment.

Bill and Pine Tree had been “together” as the humans put it, for a few months now, so they were pretty well adjusted to each other’s bodies. Bill had quickly memorized all of Pine tree’s little quirks and how to tease him just right. Bill, after all, was a fast learner.

After making sure that they were both fully exposed, leaned over Pine Tree again, gripping him at the hip while trailing kisses all the way down his sternum, past his stomach, making sure to kiss each hip bone, feeling Pine Tree shiver with anticipation underneath his hands, his own member starting to grow hard from all the touching, all the power he had over him in this moment.

He brought his mouth to the head of his cock and gave it a small lick at the tip and heard Pine Tree suck in air. Another licked earned a buck of his hips. One more teasing lick got him a, “B-Bill, please,” and he engulfed it in his mouth as a reward.

He swirled his tongue as he bobbed his head and Pine Tree bucked his hips a couple more times as he entangled his fingers in Bill’s choppy blonde locks. After just a few moments of Bill working on him, Pine Tree tugged his hair upwards and murmured out a breathy, “Hey,” Bill shot Pine Tree an upwards glance and relished the flushed look on his face.

“Why don’t you bring your legs over here?” Bill caught Pine Tree’s drift and adjusted himself over him, making his cock accessible to Pine Tree’s mouth as Bill bent down to continue working on the brunet’s member. Bill’s head bobbed a little more eagerly when he felt Pine Tree’s tongue run up his base to his tip before taking him in completely. Bill moved his hips ever so slightly, desperate for more stimulation, but being careful not the choke the source of his pleasure.

He could feel Pine Tree trying in vain to shift his arms to get a better grip on Bill, but he couldn’t do so with his arms bound by his shirt. To flaunt his freedom, the demon gave Pine Tree’s thighs a tight squeeze and nearly broke the skin with his nails and was rewarded with Pine Tree moaning into this his cock.

Bill could feel some knots tightening in his stomach at the sound so he flipped over and plopped down on his back next to Pine Tree, catching his breath.

“Did you bring-“

“It’s in the bag,” Pine Tree replied all too quickly. “My, my, aren’t we impatient today?” Bill chuckled and Pine Tree huffed.

After digging around in Pine Tree’s bag for a moment, he found the small plastic tube that he was looking for. As he approached the bed, he was surprised when Pine Tree grabbed him and twirled him around to be lying underneath him.

“You should learn to tie knots better,” he smirked triumphantly as he straddled Bill’s stomach before leaning down and biting Bill’s neck and clawing at his sides.

Oooh, did he love it when Pine Tree challenged him. Bill clasped dabbed some of the lube on his fingers and sneakily slid his hands down and underneath Pine Tree. The brunet practically jumped when Bill inserted a finger, but quickly resumed circling between sucking on Bill’s neck to biting and licking his ear as Bill held him down by the back of his head with one hand, and slowly started stretching him with the other since it has been a couple of weeks since they’ve had any real alone time to do this.

Bill inserted another finger and Pine Tree clutched his hands tighter on Bill’s side and moaned right into Bill’s ear, his cock twitching in impatiently in response. The third finger had Pine Tree rocking his hips back and forth while giving Bill a sloppy kiss, that turned into husky moans when the demon picked up the pace, gripping his hair tighter to keep him down and close to him.

“Bill,” he murmured before moaning and the demon caught on to what the brunet was trying to say. He removed his fingers and allowed Pine Tree to sit up some, and he took the opportunity to wipe some of the saliva from their sloppy kisses from his mouth before reaching behind Bill’s head for the bottle of lube.

Pine Tree scooted back and rested on Bill’s thighs as he poured some lube into his hands and began stroking Bill’s neglected member, coating it in the slick substance. Bill bucked his hips to the touch and it was over before he even really started, but before Bill could voice his complaints, he watched as Pine Tree adjusted himself over Bill.

“Do you mind if I-“

“Just hurry the fuck up,” Bill urged and Pine Tree quickly and obediently slid himself down onto Bill’s cock. Goddamn, he was tight since they haven’t fooled around in a while. Pine Tree gripped the sheets on either side of Bill’s head as he began rocking back and forth. Bill chewed on his lip, using literally all of his self-restraint to let the brunet get a good rhythm before moving his hips to meet him. If he was impatient, it was just going to end poorly for the both of them. And that kind of pain is definitely not hilarious.

Pine Tree finally found a smooth and steady rhythm and Bill let a moan escape his throat as he bucked his hips to meet Pine Tree’s motions. Pine Tree went from gripping the sheets to digging his nails into Bill’s shoulders and Bill returned the favor by keeping his claws in his hips as they swayed back and forth.

When Bill started to feel a coiling in his stomach, he stopped Pine Tree and flipped their positions. Bill sat on his knees and held Pine Tree’s legs over his shoulders and began pounding straight into his prostate. Pine Tree gasped, moaned, and made several other delectable noises over the slapping sound of Bill ramming into him full force.

Something in his brain wanted to make a statement. There was a possessiveness he couldn’t explain. Whatever this feeling was melted away as he saw Pine Tree melt beneath him and that motivated his pace. 

“B-Bill, I’m about to-“ Pine Tree huffed and Bill felt him tighten a little around his cock as Pine Tree came onto his own chest before finishing his sentence, but Bill’s pace was unrelenting all the way until the point of his own breaths becoming ragged and colors danced behind his eyelids as he came inside of Pine Tree.

Bill leaned down and gave Pine Tree an uncoordinated kiss before rolling off of him to lie on his back. Now that their moments of friction were over Bill felt a chilling breeze in the room and realized that they never closed the cabin door. With a snap of his finger, the door slammed shut and Pine Tree was already working on pulling the blankets over him before muttering a quiet, “Crap,” under his breath.

“What is it, kid?” Bill asked as he pulled Pine Tree closer to him, making him rest his head on his shoulder.

“I just remembered that this place doesn’t have a proper shower,” he expressed, the tiredness prominent in his voice.

Bill kissed his shoulder blades and said, “Sleep now. Teleport in the morning.”

That whispered promise must have been enough for Pine Tree since he immediately snuggled closer to Bill before his breaths evened. Bill’s breathing harmonized with his as he drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

The last thought resonating in his mind was, _What is human love?_

\----------------------------------------------------------------

Gideon couldn’t believe his ears. It was dark out and he was doing some night recording since different weird things happened at different times of the day, but he did not expect this kind of lead. He heard footsteps and music in a color trenches, but everything faded before he could fully investigate. All he could make out were several splotches of color in the distance and when they dissolved in the air, he could hear/see two figures talking.

It seemed private and Gideon had definitely learned to leave people’s private affairs alone, but he froze in his tracks when he heard a familiar voice say, “I love you, Bill Cipher.” There was a shuffling noise and suddenly to two figures were gone, as if they disappeared into thin air. When Gideon listened to his recordings of that moment, he could easily identify that as Dipper Pines’ voice and through logical reasoning, the person he was talking to had to be William. Of course. Since Bill is as subtle as a dog begging for scraps.

Gideon leaned up against a tree, taking short break from his hike back. There was a tough decision to be made. Dipper had been fooled by Bill in the worst way and needed guidance back to being a hero again. Gideon had looked up to the Pines family after everything that had happened and now was his chance to help them in return.

He was going to expose Bill Cipher for who he really is and snap Dipper out of whatever spell that psychopathic demon had him under. But first he needed more proof than his recording. The townsfolk aren’t as easy to convince as they were years ago so Gideon was going to need something of more substance than a garbling recorded message.

Gideon would have to take his time to expose Bill, but he couldn’t wait too long since he had no idea what the demon’s plans were. Was he planning on recreating Weirdmageddon? Is he using Dipper as a pawn to get revenge on the Pines family? How did he get a human body?

The only thing the Gideon knew for sure in this moment is that he had a lot of research to do if he was going to save anybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guuuuys! I'm sorry my uploading schedule makes no sense right now. Long story short, moved my entire operation into another room so I was without the computer for a few days and my roommate has been forcing me to reorganize the entire house with her so at the end of the day I can't do brain thoughts towards writing, so I've been doing tumblr art in my spare time. Just another week or two and I'll be properly scheduled, I promise! I love you guys, and I love your comments! Also, sorry if there were any mistakes, I only read over this once but I'll go back and reread it again later when I have some time.
> 
> Post edit note: I'm not dead guys. Life may be striking me down but I'm coming back more powerful than before!


	4. Stay Calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not dead yet! Enjoy this new chapter! Also, I edited the last chapter so feel free to reread if you'd like. No major changes, just fixed the errors and added details so there's nothing new really.

The week went by a little too quickly for Dipper. His application to rent that house he and Bill had checked out was approved almost immediately so they spent any free time they had, packing and moving boxes before setting out to buy furniture. After spending an exhausting afternoon moving all of their belongings, they were both sitting on the steps of front porch, waiting for the truck that was bringing their new living room and bedroom set.

Everything else such as shelves, decorations, curtains, they snagged from the local thrift store for a decent cost despite Bill’s protests. Dipper was still fresh from college and didn’t have a whole lot of savings to fall back on, meanwhile Bill did have his cut of treasure from his adventures with Grunkle Stan and Ford, Dipper insisted that they save that for an emergency situation, not to mention the fact that he didn’t want to completely rely on Bill’s small wealth. He wanted to keep his independency.

Dipper was complaining about the nest of Scampfires that he stumbled upon and how they almost caused a forest fire if it wasn’t for Mabel stuffing a jumbo bag of marshmallows in his bag instead of hers on accident and they shared a few laughs at his expense as they sat on the porch, awaiting the moving truck.

Dipper leaned backwards, resting his back against the floorboards of the porch. This had been a pretty exhausting week. He glanced at Bill as the one thought that had been in the back of his head all week tried to push through to the front of his mind.  

_He didn’t say it back._

Dipper noticed that Bill was staring into the yard so he took a moment to close his eyes tightly and shove that thought down. Bill didn’t show his affection with his words, but more or less his actions. He always paid attention when Dipper rambled, he always helped him whenever he needed it, and he didn’t avoid Ford at the expense of spending time with Stan and Mabel. So that should be enough, right?

No. Dipper would actually like to hear how his _significant other_ felt. He felt comfortable and happy with Bill, and sure the demon flirted and teased, but he never says genuinely sweet things. He’d like to hear it. At least once.

“Hey Bill?”

“Hmm?”

The sound of a truck pulling into their driveway deterred him from starting this serious conversation. “I think the truck is here,” he opted to say instead. Bill patted his leg before standing up and Dipper followed suit to go greet the delivery drivers.

\-----------------------------------------

Mabel was always ready for a party, no matter what. She imagined that the surprised look on Dipper and Bill’s faces would be priceless (she would definitely have to remember to bring her camera) when she thows them a surprise housewarming party next week. She _would_ do it this week but unfortunately she was still getting things ready for her booth at the Gravity Falls Fall Festival. She was going to give free glittery face paint for the little ones and sell some of her wares while handing out business cards to promote her store. Hopefully after accumulating enough business she could hire a third party business to produce her original clothing line in bulk for her. Then she’d have more time to spend with her brother and Paz.

She was currently doing her Sunday inventory check when she heard the bell jingle behind her. She quickly turned to say, “Oh, sorry, we’re closed on Sun- Gideon?” Her customer service voice squeaked into one of surprise. Gideon Gleeful was standing in her store.

“Oh, howdy there Mabel. I hope I’m not disturbing you too much,” he said sheepishly. He had his hands shoved into his khaki pants and he stood a little hunched, looking as if he felt completely out of place. “N-n-not at- I mean you are a little bit, but um,” she stuttered out not sure how to handle this. He opened his mouth to say something but she stupidly blurted out, “I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!”

His bright eyes widened in surprise for a moment before his shoulders shook with laughter. “Ha ha, so do I!” Mabel felt her face flush and she felt a little ashamed. Of course he didn’t grow up pining after her. She was so young when they met and he was even younger. But of course she felt a little justified to be wary about him after he built a giant robot to come after her and her family. But after joining forces to beat Bill, most of their antagonism dissolved and could have blossomed into some sort of friendship if he didn’t move so far away.

“S-sorry. Old habits, you know?” she smiled, hoping to come off a little friendlier.

“I totally understand. I was just in town and I heard about this place you know? You have absolutely the best taste and I wanted to buy something for my honey back home,” he said, his southern accent adding a touch of sincerity to his voice.

Mabel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said, “Well, normally I wouldn’t sale on Sunday, but I supposed I can let you pick something out. For old time’s sake.”

Gideon nodded and gave her a smile, “Thank ya, kindly.”

She spent a good hour helping him pick out a few cute things for his girlfriend and even gave him a small discount. She didn’t get the creepy vibe that he used to emit when he was crazy obsessed with her and the way his eyes lit up when he talked about his girlfriend made her feel relieved that he had worked through his issues he had when they were younger.

“So tell me, what have you and Dipper been up to? Word on the street is that he has a new beau too,” Gideon asked.

“Oh he does. His name is William and she’s a little on the eccentric side, but I think he’s really good for Dipper and vice versa,” she gushed.

“Oh, ya’ll must’ve had a lot of fun adventures over the summer. I heard about Dipper’s work at the sheriff’s office too. I’d really like to bring Yolanda up here sometime,” he sighed.

“You totally should! I’d love to meet her! We could take her up the mountain or go camping in the forest. We could take her to the lake! Oh, I have so many pictures from when Dipper, William, and I did that this past summer! Paz was too busy for most of it, but she managed to join in on some adventures,” Mabel rambled and Gideon smiled. “I’d love to see the pictures. I’m sure my honey would enjoy doing all of that.”

“Well, it’s a good thing for you that I keep the scrapbooks in my office. I’ve been meaning to pick out my favorite pics to decorate my desk with, but, whew, I’ve been swamped!” Mabel scurried off to her office and pulled out all of her scrapbooks with every single picture she had from the summer.

She passed them off to Gideon and he flipped through them and commented as Mabel finished her inventory. The sound of the bell (she really needed to remember to start locking that door when the store is closed) almost the second after she finished double checking her stock list.  

“Paz!” she greeted and flung her arms around her girlfriend. She gave her a very affectionate butterfly kiss and pointed to Gideon, “Look who popped in for a surprise visit!”

Gideon placed the scrapbook he was looking through down carefully and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Hello, Lil’ Gideon,” Paz sneered a little. If Mabel didn’t know better, there was a hint of jealously in her voice. “Mabel, you were supposed to be done a couple hours ago. The guys have been waiting for us to pick out our booth color.”

“Sorry for barging in here. I just stopped by to buy some things for my girlfriend and we lost track of time catching up. I’ll just get out of your hair now,” Gideon said as he walked towards door. “And it’s just Gideon now. I dropped the ‘Lil’’ a long time ago. Good seeing you Mabel.”

After the sound of the door closing hit her ears, Mabel turned to Paz. “Sorry, it’s just the first time I’ve ever seen him act so, well normal. I thought some encouragement would be good,” Mabel defended. “It’s fine,” Pacifica said, linking her arm through Mabel’s and leading her out the door. “Are you-“

“Jealousy is a wasteful emotion that I don’t have time for,” Pacifica quickly stated before smiling down at Mabel. “I trust you.”

Mabel’s chest felt warm and fuzzy as she snuggled Paz’s arm a little tighter. “Good.”

\----------------------------------

Bill sighed into the chilled air as he held the fishing pole for Fez. Fez was really intent on getting one more fishing session out on the boat in before it got too cold for his stupid old bones. And since Pine Tree had to watch over the station this Sunday, Shooting Star had to do inventory for her store and get her booth set up, and Sixer was working with Glasses in the basement of the mansion again, Bill was the last one Fez had to choose from. Even though Bill was the first one he asked. Why the geezer enjoyed his company, he would probably never know. But then again, he is a delight to be around so why shouldn’t Fez seek his company constantly? Bill just wished he’d pick a less boring activity.

The grumpy old man fiddled with the line and finally got the hook attached properly. “There we go. Want me to fix yours up too?”

“Nah, I think I’m just going to spectate this time. Even though it was pretty hilarious getting a hook caught in my arm, Pine Tree and Shooting Star wouldn’t shut up about it last time,” Bill stated with an exaggerated eye roll.

“That’s because they care about you, kid,” Fez said before whipping the pole back and swinging it forward with a snap, landing a safe distance from the boat.

Bill let out a small, “Mmph,” of acknowledgement. The blonde watched the old geezer carefully and decided it would be best to wait until he was in the middle of sipping on a Pitt Cola to drop his next question.

“What does it mean when a human falls in love?” Bill asked out of the blue and achieved the desired effect of Fez nearly choking on his drink. Bill held back a snicker and looked at the old man expectantly.

Fez pulled at the collar of his shirt awkwardly and said, “W-well it could mean a lot of things. For me, it just meant heartbreak, but that’s not how it is for most people.”

“Oh?” Bill queried lazily. He tried his best to sound disinterested from the subject but he really needed to know that answer. For humans, love isn’t a subject that’s to be taken lightly.

“Well, it could mean a whole lot of different things.”

“Name them,” Bill demanded in a light tone in a way that wouldn't come off as eager.

“First, it could mean that you found someone that you’re physically attracted to, but that’s not to be confused with just lusting after some hot piece of tail,” he said thoughtfully. “You’d want to hold them and be close to them.”

_Check._ Pine Tree was definitely attractive by his standards. He enjoyed physical contact of all kinds with him.

“Another reason people fall in love is because of someone’s wit. They can make you laugh and feel happy in general and in return you want to do the same.”

_Another check._ Laughing and being with Pine Tree felt like second nature at this point.

“Some people just want someone to spend the rest of their life with so they don’t die alone,” Fez muttered.

_Check-a-roni._ Pine Tree would be the perfect companion until it’s this body’s time to decompose.

“And lastly, being in love is putting yourself last and putting the person you care for first. Always. When you’re really in love, your first priority is to make them happy even if it means letting them go,” Fez finally said. He had a look in his eye that seemed reminiscent of something. Probably of someone who broke his heart in the past. _Geez, humans can be wusses sometimes._

But he wasn’t sure if that was a box he could check off. If Pine Tree decided to leave him- the thought immediately made his blood boil and he quickly closed his eyes and counted to ten before his bright blue contacts melted into his eye sockets. Again.

Pine Tree wouldn’t leave him and he wouldn’t ever leave Pine Tree. Right? There was no reason to. Sure, Bill was a bit bored at the moment, but that would change eventually. He’d find a new task, a new purpose and he’d fulfill whatever it is gloriously.

But at least he knew Pine Tree really meant it when he said he loved Bill. He exhibited all the signs that Fez had stated and that made him feel giddy. It was pretty amazing that a whole cult worshiping him couldn’t make him feel beloved at all, but the affection of one human could make him feel like the most cherished being in the whole multiverse.

He wanted to question Fez more on the subject, but when Bill opened his eyes to see the geezer staring off into the lake with those sad droopy eyes of his he opted to not say anything, and instead, he gave him a firm punch on the shoulder and that seemed to pull him out of his stupor. Fez shook away whatever he was thinking about and elbowed Bill before taking another sip of his Pitt Cola.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that to always let them know you love them back before it’s too late.”

Bill thought about that statement as the chilly breeze whipped his hair wildly around his head.

The air was definitely getting colder each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay. Just call me Lucy because I have some 'splaining to do. 
> 
> One of the things I cannot excuse myself for is that other fandoms are distracting me. *cough cough* FFXV *cough cough* But I promise that this trilogy and Snowed Inn will get done before I start writing fics for other fandoms. 
> 
> There's actually a few other personal reasons that I haven't been able to update lately and I apologize for that. But I'm going to try to keep regular updates from now on! I'll probably update on Sundays or Mondays, I'm not sure yet. 
> 
> Also, I apologize for the short chapter, but I also plan on updating Snowed Inn tonight as well.


	5. All Time Low

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of depression later in this chapter

Dipper walked the fairgrounds with Mabel. The air was crisp, but the town felt warm. People were bustling about checking out all the stalls and games the fair had to offer.

Bill had to help Soos and Melody move one of the attractions and planned would meet with them later. Miranda and Clara were minding the main store and Marty had their booth covered for a moment, so the twins took some time to walk about together.

Mabel had her arm linked through Dipper’s as she pointed at the booth with the old man giving away pigs. Dipper gave her a disapproving look. “No way. Waddles is too old to deal with having a piglet around.”

“You right. I wasn’t really suggesting that I get another one, anyway. It’s just memories, you know?” Mabel said with a bright smile.

She was right. Being in Gravity Falls this past summer brought about a _lot_ of old memories and being here in the fall felt a little weird, but right all the same. “Yeah.”

They wandered for a bit. Mabel bought some cotton candy and was dedicated to engulfing one of the giant fluff wads all by herself while Dipper was waiting for Bill to get there.

They took a moment to sit down and people watch as Mabel worked her way through the sticky concoction.

“So,” she said, trailing off on the first word. Dipper nudged her with his elbow, “What’s up?”

Mabel chewed on her lip for a moment before facing Dipper. “Gideon came to visit me yesterday.”

Dipper tensed for a moment. He had several thoughts pushing through his brain about how Gideon had asked him to keep quiet about him being back in town but didn’t tell him why. Was he seriously after Mabel?

Dipper felt a small bubble of annoyance but decided to keep his cool. “Oh, really? What did he want?”

“Actually it felt like he just wanted to catch up. He told me about his girlfriend and I showed him my scrapbooks,” Mabel smiled but Dipper felt dread.

“Mabel, you didn’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You had pictures OF-“ Dipper stopped himself from raising his voice and whispered, “Bill. You had pictures of Bill without his contacts in there.”

Mabel’s face fell immediately. “I-I forgot about that. But he didn’t say anything. He was very talkative about the scrapbook too, he would have said something if he noticed,” she tried to defend.

Dipper looked away for a minute before looking back at her. “It should be fine.”

“What should be fine?” Bill’s voice called from behind the bench they were sitting on.

Dipper and Mabel both turned their heads to the blonde and Mabel squealed the moment she noticed Soos holding little Sophie and ran to them, giving Dipper a reason to ignore Bill’s question. He didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. Instead, he stood up and walked over to Bill to slip his hand in his. He may technically be on duty, but he could still enjoy himself. As a matter of fact, Blubs and Durland were having fun around here somewhere as well.

Bill gave his hand a squeeze and looked around to take in the sight of the fair in full swing. His eyes were bright with excitement and he even waved to a few of the townsfolk who enthusiastically waved back.

Bill was starting to have a pretty good reputation around this small, quiet town and Dipper felt pretty proud of him for fitting in. Bill and Dipper actually had a pretty in depth conversation about his sanity over the summer. Bill was different than when he used to be a triangle and eventually they had a good talk about it.

Bill didn’t have access to his many eyes anymore so loads of information didn’t constantly stream through his mind. Bill could remember a vast majority of his information, but a lot of useless things were lost on him when he put himself in a human body to recover his power. But without knowledge looming in his mind and the temptation to use it (not to mention his anger towards his ex-henchmaniacs), Bill was able to find some sort of peaceful balance and learned how to human correctly in time. He and Stan told Dipper and Mabel stories about how he nearly killed him and Ford overseas because of his carelessness and one extremely close near-death experience made him realize that he needed to change something or he would _actually_ die.

“I see you’ve gotten over your uncomfortableness around babies,” Dipper snickered and Bill shot him a disturbed look. Dipper contained his laugh and asked, “Do you want to check out some games?”

“Sure thing, Pine Tree. Pick one I can kick your butt at,” Bill jauntily stated as they left Mabel, Soos, and little Sophie behind.

Bill and Dipper hung out around the fair like a normal couple and it was a pretty good feeling. Sure, they liked their weird adventures together but occasionally it was nice to stop and smell the roses and just enjoy each other’s company, even though they chatted with a few townspeople as they wandered.

Bill was even specifically stopped by a regular at Mabel’s store. “Oh, William! Do you have any more of those little charms in yet?”

“Not yet, but they’ll be in quicker than two shakes of a lambs tail!” Bill replied, while nudging Dipper. That Lamby Lamb Dance was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Oh, good. I really wanted to get something for my friend’s birthday next week.”

“We’ll have them before then, don’t worry,” Bill replied, putting on a bright customer service smile. She smiled back and said, “Good,” before turning to Dipper and stated, “You’ve got a good one here, Pines. He might be quirky, but you take care of him, you hear?”

Dipper nodded and almost laughed. She was the first one to tell him to take care of Bill. Usually it’s the other way around and people are telling Bill to take care of him.

After she sauntered off to go meet up with someone, Dipper wrapped his arm around Bill’s shoulder and began to walk towards their next stop. “People are really starting to warm up to you.”

He glanced at Bill through his peripheral and saw him smiling one of his genuinely happy smiles. “Yeah.” After a pause, his face returned to its usual cocky look. “I mean, why wouldn’t they? I’m the most entertaining person around!”

_Person._ Was Bill identifying with being a human, more?

After another hour of wandering around, Dipper left Bill to go check in with Durland and Blubs. They had their own little tent set up in case someone needed to report something stolen or in case and kids got separated from their parents.

Dipper began to lift the flap when he overheard a familiar accent speaking. “I believe Bill Cipher is back and I have proof.”

Blubs made a disgruntled noise and said, “Boy, this is a serious accusation and if this is a prank, I’ll find a way to send you back to prison and keep you there.”

Dipper’s heart was in his throat when he opened the flap all the way. “W-what’s all the hubbub guys?” Dipper mentally slapped himself for trying to take a lighthearted tone with this. He had to do damage control, fast.

“Gideon here believes that-“  
“Can you help me?”

A sullen woman standing behind Dipper pushed her way past him and said, “My child is lost in the crowd, can you help me find him?”

Dipper mentally thanked whatever god that might be out there and said, “Guys, how about you help her and I’ll help Gideon.”

Gideon gulped and pulled at his collar, but Blubs said, “Yeah, let’s do that. What he’s saying is more your department anyway.”

As Blubs and Durland walked out the door, Durand put his hand on Dipper’s shoulder and whispered, “If his statement has _any_ validity at all, call us immediately over the walkie-talkie,” before stepping outside the tent to help the woman find her lost child.

Dipper nervously patted his shirt before sitting down at the table Gideon standing by. “Have a seat and tell me exactly what you think is going on.”

Gideon shook his head, “No, it’s nothing important.”

“Have a seat, Gideon. If you didn’t think it was important, then you would be here in the first place,” Dipper stated, sternly.

“No I  think-“

“I heard you mention Bill Cipher,” Dipper wasn’t playing games. He wasn’t going to let Gideon leave this tent thinking the Bill was out there. “Is that why you came to town? Is that why you visited my sister after telling me not to mention you were here?”

Gideon had a guilty look and nodded. “I know he’s William. Dipper, he needs to be exposed! This is for your own good!” Gideon yelled as he clutched a side bag that Dipper just noticed. Whatever proof he had must be in there.

“Now hold up, what makes you think he’s William? Do you honestly think I would date my enemy?” Dipper asked as he stood up slowly. He had to get that bag. “Do you think that I would let threat that big waltz into town like it owned the place?” All valid questions. Right now, Bill was neither of those things.

“No, not normally. You’ve been brainwashed! That yellow demon had to have been the one to brainwash you! I’ll save you, if you’ll let me,” Gideon defended taking a step back but Dipper was quicker and grabbed him by the collar. His anger and resentment towards the word, “brainwash” got the better of him and he lost his cool and let the secret out. “Let me tell you one thing, Bill _did not_ brainwash me. A demon named Hectorgon did and Bill fixed it. He fixed it and didn’t ask for a damn thing in return. We fought together, side by side. I trust him,” Dipper’s eyes were pleading for Gideon to believe him.

Gideon’s eyes grew wide with a realization and he said, “So you admit he’s been in your mind. He must have taken Hectorgon’s strings and put his own in! Don’t you see?”

Dipper shook his head. Bill was finally fitting in. Bill had a good life. Bill wasn’t insane anymore. He couldn’t let Gideon take all these things away from him. “Give me your bag,” Dipper growled, reaching for the shoulder strap and Gideon punched him square in the jaw.

The shorter man took off running and before Dipper could stop himself, he was tackling Gideon to the ground, but the momentum flung them through the flap outside of the tent and few passersby stopped and started shouting about the fight. Before Dipper could calm down and stand up, Gideon kneed him in the gut but as he scrambled to get up, Dipper grabbed him by the back of his shirt and slammed in to the ground and used the momentum to get back up on his feet.  

Dipper felt a wet spot on his chin where Gideon had punched him and wiped a spot of blood off of the corner of his mouth. Gideon got on his knees and lunged at Dipper from the ground, aiming to take him down from waist, but Dipper moved slightly and dug his heels into the ground to catch him in a headlock. A blow to his gut knocked the wind out of him but he kept his grip until a pair of arms hooked him from under his shoulders and began dragging him backwards.

“Pine Tree, what the hell are you doing?” Bill’s voice was in his ear, indicating that it was him dragging him away from Gideon while a couple townspeople helped Gideon up. “Let go, I have to- “

“Unhand him, Bill Cipher.”

The crowd that seemed to gather around them broke into whispers.

Dipper felt Bill freeze for the briefest of moments before unhanding Dipper. “The name’s William, kid and while I have an appreciation for nicknames, I prefer William.”

“Stop playing innocent, you’re Bill Cipher and you brainwashed Dipper Pines!” Gideon declared and the roar of circulating whispers grew louder and louder. “There’s no way Dipper would have fought me like that over this if you didn’t have something to do with it!” Dipper scrunched his brows, “You threw the first punch!”

Mabel broke her way through the crowd to stand by Dipper, ignoring the dirty looks people were giving her for shoving them aside. “Someone told me you were fighting, what’s going on?” she demanded, looking between Dipper and Gideon.

Bill kept an aloof look on his face, but his eyes sparkled with intensity.

“I have undeniable proof that William is Bill Cipher! First, I have this,” Gideon stated as he dug through his bag and held up one of the pictures from Mabel’s scrapbook. Mabel gasped but didn’t say anything. Acknowledging that it was her photo would damn them instantly. Bill’s eyes were clearly yellow in the photo. They had just gone swimming and his contacts had fallen out.

“That looks photoshopped,” Bill stated. “I mean, you’re clearly jealous that I’m with Pi- Dipper now, and you have the worst taste of sabotage.” Bill was cold and lying but it got the crowd on their side. People murmured and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, anyone can alter a photo,” Mabel yelled loudly, the guilt heavy in her voice.

“Fine, the next piece of proof I have to offer is this.” The sound of a garbled message played and even though it was full of static, the message was clear. “I love you, Bill Cipher.”

They were losing the crowd and Dipper felt eyes fall on him. “That’s clearly edited as well. It doesn’t even sound-“

“HA, THAT DOESN’T EVEN SOUND LIKE DIPPER!” Bill yelled for everyone to hear. Bill was definitely better at lying so Dipper closed his mouth and let him talk. There were a few shrugs from the crowd. They were unsure.

“Then I guess that leaves me to my final piece of proof,” Gideon said looking through his bag. The crowd nearly broke into turmoil when Gideon pulled out a gun and pointed it at Dipper. “I really wish I didn’t have to do this,” he said as he pulled the trigger and a wall of blue flames erupted from the ground, shielding them.

But no bullet flew through the air. They were had.

The crowd’s angry glare turned towards the three of them.

As the flames sunk into the ground, Gideon yelled, “See! It is Bill Cipher and he’s brainwashed the Pines twins! We have to ban together and do something!”

There were angry noises coming from the crowd as they seemed to close in. Dipper was ready to defend Bill though. He was going to stand by his side no matter how this turned out, even if he had to skip town. He wasn’t going to give Bill up just because they’ve been ousted. He’ll make the town people see that he’s changed.

“There’s no denying it now. This is Bill Cipher, but listen to me!” Dipper called out and the crowd didn’t seem too keen on listening. He looked over to Bill to ask him to teleport the three of them out of there, but instead he saw the demon looking downward, shoulders shaking. There was a quiet laugh and Dipper was wondering what the hell he found about an angry mob so funny.

The laughter slowly grew in volume, echoing over the sound of the crowd. They paused, fearful looks on their faces. Almost everyone in the crowd has seen what Bill could do and didn’t know that his powers weren’t in full swing right now. They were still powerful but not as powerful as they were during Weirdmageddon. “Bill?” Dipper whispered.

Bill began a slow clap and looked at Gideon. “Good job, exposing the demon kid.” Bill firmly put his hands on his waist and glared. “You’ve done an excellent job pissing me off. If you want Pine Tree and Shooting Star back so bad, you can have them,” Bill snapped his fingers and blue flames circled around them for show and Dipper knew that’s all that it was. Bill was putting on a show. He wasn’t really still brainwashed. Bill couldn’t have done that. Right?

Dipper was about to say something, but Mabel covered his mouth with her hand and let Bill speak. “Now that the secret is out, I don’t need them anymore. But just know this, Gideon Gleeful,” Bill’s voice slowly became distorted and his eyes grew red, causing the contacts to melt out and expose his true pupils. “YoU, ArE GoINg tO pAY WiTH EVERY FIBER OF YOUR BEING!”

Blue flames engulfed Bill and he was gone.

Suddenly they were surrounded by the townspeople who were whispering things like, “We need to get them to a hospital.”

“What’s a hospital going to do? They need a psychiatrist.”

“Someone call Ford and Stan!”

Dipper and Mabel were being led to a medical tent and one question flowed through Dipper’s mind.

_“Did Bill really trick me?”_

\------------------------------------------------------------

Stan punched a wall when he saw the news. Some dingbat recorded the whole showdown and it was being played on a loop.

“This is bad Ford. We have to find, Bill,” Stan stated, aggravation in his voice as he shook the pain from his hand.

“What about the kids? We should check up on them. We at least know where they are and Bill could literally be anywhere in world,” Ford reasoned. Stan swallowed, knowing that his brother was right but the kids had the townspeople to look after them. Bill didn’t have anyone. But if Bill wanted help, he would have come straight to them as he’s done in the past. “Bill really fucked this one up, didn’t he?” Stan said, rubbing the back of his head in thought for a moment before grabbing his coat. Dipper was going to be heartbroken for a while over this.

Bill didn’t know how to be a family or how to stand by others when the going gets tough like this and Stan planned to knock some sense into him if- _when_ he saw him again.

But for now, the older twins were on damage control duty and the press was going to have a field day with this.

“Yeah. They’re probably going to start preparing for Weirdmageddon Two because of his outburst. We’ll try to talk sense into them,” Ford agreed as he walked out the door with his brother.

\-------------------------------------

Mabel stared at her hands and absentmindedly kicked her feet as she waited for the person who was preforming her psyche evaluation to return. Guilt ate at her for being dumb enough to just give Gideon her scrapbook. She couldn’t believe he used her like that either! So she was stuck here and had to listen to the doctor use the same questions they use on people who have been brainwashed by cults to see if she was sane!

Her fury dimmed some when the woman, Dr. Brenner returned with her clipboard and sat down across from her. “It seems that you’re just fine. Bill doesn’t seem to have an influence on you anymore,” she stated. She bit her tongue. _I wasn’t under his influence in the first place._

“So does that mean me and my brother can go?” she asked, hopefully.

“Yes, but I need you to sign some paperwork. You brother, well, he isn’t doing so good and can only be released into the care of a family member right now,” Dr. Brenner informed.

Mabel’s eyes grew wide and her heart raced, “What do you mean that he’s not doing so well? What’s wrong with him?”

“Well, while our tests concluded that he’s not under Bill’s influence either, he’s showing signs of paranoia and depression,” she said, regret in her eyes.

“DEPRESSION!? What did he say to make you think that?” Mabel demanded but Brenner was like a safe and responded, “I can’t share that information but he might be willing to share it with you. All I can say is from what I’ve seen in the news and around town is that he had a deeper connection to Bill than anyone else. He’s going to be suspended from work until the psychiatrist says he fine. Now sign these forms and you two can go home.”

Mabel took a moment to fume and take this news in. Brenner broke the silence by saying, “You and your brother are heroes. He’s strong, so it probably won’t take him long to recover, but this kind of thing, this kind of manipulation takes a toll mentally. I think he just needs to find his bearings and move on.” The doctor smiled sweetly and Mabel’s anger melted. It’s not her fault that this is happening and she seems to care at least.

Mabel scribbled her signature on some forms and when she finally saw Dipper, she was relieved to see that he looked normal. When the doctor said depressed, she thought that he would be teary eyed and mopey, but then again, those kinds of symptoms don’t always show on the surface so she decided to do what she does best.

She crushed his ribs in her patented “multi-bear hug” and he gasped for air. “Geez, Mabes. I need air, you know,” Dipper strained to say and Mabel loosened her grip. “I’m moving in with you. Starting tonight.”

“What?” Dipper blinked in confusion. “Bro-bro, we need to stick together. I’m not letting you go through this alone and we need to find Bi-“

“No we don’t! We don’t have to find him!”

Mabel stepped away from him, the harshness of his voice scaring her. _He’s really is acting differently._

“Well, I’m still moving in with you,” she said softly. He didn’t seem to realize it, but he did need help. Today was traumatic and he lost a lot of things because of it.

He stared at the ground and she could see him forcing himself to breath slowly. He glanced up from under his bangs and quietly said, “Okay. I’m sorry, it’s just that I-“

“Don’t worry about it Bro-Bro. We’ll talk more when we get home,” Mabel said calmly, grabbing her brother’s hand and leading him to the door.

She smiled up at him as they left the hospital to see Ford, Stan, and Pacifica waiting on them. “See, we’re all in this together.”

Dipper shook his head, as if he was shaking the bad thoughts from it and smiled gratefully at her, “Yeah. We are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so originally I wasn't going to have a depressed Dipper, but as I was writing I realized that he has some things he has to work through before the next stage of the story so I'm sorry for spring that on you! It's only going to last a couple of chapters and I'm adding it to the tags! 
> 
> But on the bright side, look at me doing the update thing regularly again! Woot woot!


	6. Beautiful Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More talks of depression in this chapter but the last half gets pretty fluffy. *snickers*

Bill sat cross-legged in the center of a controlled forest fire he started. The blue flames licked around him, but kept to a designated trail so he could walk in and out with ease. If he allowed to flames to grow too big, the humans would try to interfere with it and find where he was hiding out.  

Incensed rage barely began to describe how he felt. He wanted to rIP GiDEoN’s GUtS oUT aNd hANg HIm wItH hIS OwN InTesTInES!

Bill took a deep breath, the calming sent of burning wood invading his lungs. It smelled like a campfire. Well, if several of them were burning at once.

If he stayed there any longer, it would start to have an effect on his human body so Bill stood up and teleported himself to his new place of residence, the raven mocker’s old cabin, though, he spruced it up to fit his tastes. He had expanded it and it now had proper separate rooms. He would have to bring Pine Tr- no. He couldn’t do that anymore.  

Bill made the firm decision to leave him behind and let him live his pathetic human life the way he was supposed to. He didn’t know why he chose to do that when it caused his chest this unbelievably agonizing pain, but something made him stick to that decision. A gnawing feeling in his gut.  It was for the best.

It was naïve of that human to think that he could convince a town he nearly started the apocalypse in to give him a chance. Not to mention that if they realized that Pine Tree wasn’t really brainwashed by Bill and that he had indeed found comradery in the demon, both sets of Pines twins would have been run out of town, or worse. And if the “or worse” happened, then nothing would stop Bill from tearing this pathetic town to pieces and leaving it in the dust.  

He glanced into the direction of his little controlled forest fire to make sure his shield around it was holding up. Half the reason he kept it going was because it kept him from having the energy from going back into town and wiping out everyone who stood in the way of his and Pine Tree’s happiness. He should really just leave this godforsaken town and just start somewhere new, where no one knows him. There was a huge part of him felt compelled to stay close to Gravity Falls and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the Pines family or the fact that this was a huge source of supernatural activity.

Part of him hoped that it was the latter because he really disliked his codependency with Pine Tree and Pines family but it was the only thing he truly knew in this form. It gave him comfort in a very uncomfortable way and now that he’s cut off from them, it burned his insides and made his intestines churn.

Also, one more thing that was holding him here was the fact that there was one more mystery to solve. He had to find out how the fuck Gideon Gleeful had gotten a whiff of Bill’s scent. He was subtle while they were in town and they had absolutely zero screw ups with the fake name. Not to mention every single person besides the Pines family and the exception of that Northwest chick thought Bill was dead and adored William. Did Hector lead him on his trail in case his own plans didn’t pan out? No, he’s not that smart. Bill was the only one who really thought twenty steps ahead when he schemed.

 He felt some suspicion towards Ford, but the man would have just taken Bill out himself if he was really determined, though he did go behind Bill’s back and made a deal with Hector. There were a lot of variables to account for and research to be done before he could act.

The thought of torturing Gideon for info crossed his mind, but the Pines family would shut him down the minute they caught wind of it and it would be hard to keep that kind of operation under wraps because the town is definitely on the lookout for him now. He would have to give it some time.

Yeah, after some time, things would die down and he could go back in for a little recon with possibly a side of revenge.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Dipper felt a little anxious staring at the door to the therapist’s office. It had been a week since Bill left him and he had been diagnosed with paranoia and depression, but he didn’t feel all that depressed actually. He more or less felt angry and upset, but that didn’t really mean depression, did it? Though he could admit he was a little more jumpy than usual. Maybe this could be good?

He glanced back towards Mabel in the waiting room, who dropped everything and insisted coming here with him. Even though Dipper thought it was unnecessary, he was glad she did it all the same. She gave him smile and a small wave and he nodded at her before stepping into the office.

It was a nice little office with a very casual setting. In the center was a coffee table with a loveseat across from a couple of chairs and to the left of the room was the desk with certificates hung around it with a petite blonde woman who he assumed was his designated therapist.

The room wasn’t as intimidating as he imagined. It had a very comfortable friendly atmosphere with a lot of bright colors and sunlight. Nothing like how they make it out to be in the movies.

“Ah, Mr. Pines, welcome,” she said as she glided across the room and held out her hand. Dipper took it and was surprised by the firm shake he received. “I’m Dr. Parks and I’ll be handling your sessions.  Please have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the loveseat in the center of the room. He sat down and then awkwardly asked, “I don’t have to lie down, do I?”

She gave a polite chuckled and responded, “Only if you want to. I want you to just do whatever makes you the most comfortable.”

“Oh, t-thanks. Sorry, I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said, unsure of why he was defending himself. He settled down on the right side of the couch and the doctor sat across from him in one of the smaller chairs.

“I understand. It can be a bit, intimidating the first time coming here, but I’d like you to regard to this place as sort of a sanctuary. I know the town has you and your sister under a microscope and have their own opinions, but know that when you walk into this room, my opinion of you is completely unbiased and that I will listen to what you are saying, okay?”

Dipper let out a small sigh of relief and said, “Thanks.”

“Now, is there anything on your mind?  Anything you care to talk about? You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but I also want to iterate that you have the advantage of having someone know about our town’s _unique_ qualities so you can tell me about everything you’ve seen and feel, no bars held. Or, like I said, you don’t have to say anything at all. I’m here to move at your pace,” Dr. Parks said in her kind tone. Dipper was glad that her voice was soft and serene. It actually made him feel a little a peace here.

They sat in silence who knows how long. The doctor didn’t keep a clock in here so the passage of time was a little blurry.

After what felt like half an hour, he sighed and said, “I’m just not sure where to begin. So much has happened.”

The doctor smiled and said, “Take your time. You can start at the beginning or at the part that distresses you the most.”

Dipper chewed his lip and glanced down, “I-I, well, there’s a lot to the story that I’m not sure if I _can_ even talk about. If other people found out then-“ Dipper let the thought trail off. To be honest, he wasn’t sure what the consequences would be.

“Then let me assure you of one thing. Everything said in this room, will strictly be between you and me. No matter what you say, I cannot, by _law_ as a matter of fact, disclose anything you say to anyone else, understand?” she asked, firmly.

Dipper nodded and decided to start his story. The sooner he gets through this, the sooner he can get back to work. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning then, when Mabel and I came back at the beginning of summer.”

“Okay. I’m ready when you are, and please take your time,” Dr. Parks said as she clicked her pen open and held it to her clip board.

“It was a pretty bright and sunny morning.”

\---------------------------------------------------------

Mabel elbowed Dipper’s side, “Hey, it’s late enough. Wanna hit the Twenty-Four?”

Dipper looked out the window and then at his watch. It was little past eleven so now would be a safe time to go get groceries without the prying eyes of citizens butting into their lives.

“Yeah, let’s get going,” Dipper agreed and sat up from his spot. His therapy sessions for the past couple of weeks were going really well and he actually felt better having someone with an outside opinion to talk to. Mabel was just as pissed at Bill as Dipper was and he couldn’t really blame her, though her reasoning was, “Of course it’s natural to be protective of my little brother!” And Stan refused to even talk about Bill.

They rode in Mabel’s car down to the market. Since they were ousted by Gideon, he and Mabel decided to run to the safety (and distant) Old Northwest Manor temporarily, even though all of her things were boxed up and ready to move into Dipper’s house. They thought it would be best to keep out of sight while the town was on the hunt for Bill, though they were asked numerous times to lead said hunt. They responded that they need some time to recover from the ‘brainwashing’ and that got people off their backs, at least for a little while. It was really hard to maneuver and have any sort of privacy when they were labelled and revered by an entire town’s population. Sure their label as “local town heroes” was a positive one, but it was annoying to have them pry into every inch of their life.

Dipper glanced out the window and thought about moving out of town. Gravity Falls felt like home, but without Bill and with the town breathing down their necks, it was bit hard to-

“STOP THE CAR!” Dipper heard himself yell. Mabel immediately slammed on her breaks and swerved to the side of the road. “What the heck, Dipper? You nearly gave me a- Hey wait!” Mabel called as Dipper got out of the car and ran to the limping silhouette on the side of the road.

He held out his hand to it carefully and it began limping towards him, pushing its wet nose into the palm of his hand, a low whine escaping its mouth.

“What’s the big deal? Oh, a dog,” Mabel said, slightly out of breath from her jog to catch up with Dipper. Now that Dipper got a better look of it in the moonlight, he could indeed see that it was a dog. Most of the time it was best to not assume what an animal actually is in this neck of the woods, but finding something normal like a dog was a bit of relief.

“He’s limping. Or she, I’m not sure,” Dipper said. He didn’t quite understand while he felt compelled to take care of a stray animal, but before he knew it, he holding his mini flashlight from his keychain in his mouth and examining its paw on the hurt leg. “Mabel, do you have your makeup case with you? I need some tweezers,” Dipper asked through the side of his mouth, as he gave the paw a light squeeze to see a massive thorn sticking out. The dog struggled, but Dipper held the paw in one hand and gave comforting pets behind the ears with the other.

Mabel grabbed her case from the car and passed him the tweezers he asked for. He plucked it out pretty effortlessly but the dog yelped and then snapped at him before backing away and running into the forest. “Well, at least its’ not hurt anymore,” Dipper said, standing up. He and Mabel made their way back to the car when he felt two paws on his back, nearly knocking him over. “Oof.”

Dipper stepped forward and turned around, the dog jumping on him again, but not pawing at him for attention; it was kind of like a hug.

Dipper patted it on its head and said, “Okay, okay. You’re fine now so you can go.”

Instead of leaving, the dog ran to the car and waited at the passenger back door. “Looks like you’re a daddy now, Bro-Bro,” Mabel snickered. “Wait until I tell Mom and Dad!” She hollered before jumping back into the driver’s seat. Dipper sighed and opened the passenger back door for the dog before climbing into the actual passenger’s seat. “We have to put up flyers you know. What if it belongs to someone?”

“Fine, fine. But if no one claims her in a month, then she’s yours,” Mabel said with a wink. “How do you know it’s a girl? We haven’t checked its underside yet.”

“Call it women’s intuition,” she said as she started the car and drove down to the Twenty-Four.

“I guess I can get the groceries if you want to wait in the car with her?” Dipper offered.

“No way! Just bring her in with us, no one is at the market at this time of night,” Mabel giggled. “Mabel, that’s against the rules, we can’t just-“

“What you say, girl? Wanna go inside with us?” Mabel beamed as she quickly got out of her seat and opened the door. The dog happily jumped down and followed them inside. “See, she’s practically trained! She has to belong to someone else.”

“C’mon, I’ll get the groceries, and you get some pet supplies,” Mabel said, ignoring him as she grabbed a cart and pushed it towards Dipper before grabbing her own cart and headed in a separate direction. “Yeah, sure. Leave me alone so I’m the one that gets in trouble,” Dipper said to no one in particular with an eye roll. He glanced down at the dog, noticing that she was actually pretty big. She had to be over sixty pounds.

But he had to check one thing for sure before shopping for it. He patted its ears and hind legs, and the desired effect of rolling over for a belly rub was achieved and he saw that Mabel was right. This dog was indeed a girl.

He patted her ribcage twice to signal her to roll back over and she followed him to the pet section. They had a pretty pitiful selection of things, but he was able to get the basics. He got a blue leash, a pet bed, a couple of metal food bowls (because even if she had an owner, Mabel could use these for Waddles when she moved in), a bright floral collar, some shampoo because her bright golden fur had a lot of dirt in it, and some dog food.

When he finally left the aisle, Mabel already had a cart full of groceries (man, that Mabel juice really made her hustle), and was gesturing for him to come check out a machine.

“We can have a dog tag made here! Have you thought about a name?” Mabel asked, tilting her head and Dipper felt the dog lean on his leg comfortably. “Aw, you know what that means right? It means your part of her pack now,” Mabel giggled. “We shouldn’t get attached Mabel. What if she really does belong to someone else?”

Mabel bent down and gave her a scratch behind the ears, “Aw, who would lose this cutie? If someone lost her, she’s been lost for a while. Now, name please!”

Mabel seemed determined so Dipper shrugged and thought of the first name that came to mind. He muttered out, “How about Stella?”

“As in a Streetcar Na-“

“Yes, yes, sheesh,” Dipper quickly cut her off. Mabel chuckled because she made him sit through that old movie last night and now the name was stuck in his head.

“Stella it is then,” she said as she picked out a bright, reflective, rainbow colored nametag. She put Dipper’s number on it as well in case she got lost. Well, lost again.

“Oh good, you got shampoo, let’s go get her cleaned up and introduce her to Waddles!” Mabel cheered as she pushed one cart and pulled the other cart behind her. Dipper stood there with an incredulous look for a moment. Part of him felt like Mabel has been over compensating for his sake and he didn’t want her to feel that way.

Dipper sighed and leaned a little bit back towards Stella. Leaning on each other was actually a very comforting notion. “Thanks Stella. I guess you’re coming home with us, huh?” Stella didn’t respond, probably because she doesn’t understand human language, but Dipper still felt a small surge of something akin to happiness when he looked at her.

“Yeah, let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, now that I'm back in full swing, I even got some more Billdip art up on my tumblr. ^-^ 
> 
> http://purplerivulets.tumblr.com/post/157383727280/bill-what-are-you-doing-what-you-dont
> 
> Thanks for your support guys! I love you guys and I love your comments! :D


	7. Still Alive

Mabel held her breath and counted to ten. If she didn’t control herself like this, she was going to have some words for the next passerby that treated her and her brother like glass.

It has been three months. Three months since Bill put on his little show and left her and Dipper to deal with this town on their own. And in that span of three months, the townspeople treated them like they were the most fragile humans on this planet and not to mention they had enough religious clerks that could keep a comedian in an endless supply of jokes stopped by their _personal_ address to see if they wanted to “talk things out” but really, they were just nosy.

But luckily, things were finally slowing down and the man(demon?)hunt for Bill was starting to become less of a priority. Rumors were starting to float around that he abandoned Gravity Falls for good.

Gideon went back home to visit his family for a couple weeks and that probably had something to do with slowdown of the hunt, but he was going to return before Thanksgiving.  Mabel felt as if she had a huge hand to play with him suddenly deciding to leave town. After they adopted Stella, Mabel finally found her nerve to leave Dipper alone for a while to go talk to Gideon and she was not nice.  

\---------------------------------------------------------------

_Mabel knocked on the door quickly and harshly, not wanting to lose her nerve. She came to this house for a reason and she wasn’t going to leave without saying what she wanted to say and getting what belonged to her._

_The door opened and Gideon’s face was lit with joy. “Mabel! What brings you-“ Mabel pushed past him to enter his home. “Cut the pleasantries Gideon, I didn’t come here to join your little search party.”_

_Gideon sighed and closed the door. “Then what brings me the delight of your presence?” Gideon’s tone wasn’t as hopeful as it had been when he first opened the door seeing that Mabel made it obvious that she wasn’t here to play nice._

_“I came for my photo.” Mabel didn’t even look at him as she spoke. She couldn’t. She was too angry with and didn’t want to lash out before she got her possession back._

_“Ah, but why would you want this?” Gideon asked as he dug the photo out of his wallet and held it up for her. She turned on her heel and snatched it from his hand before looking him dead in the eyes._

_“Gideon, next time you have suspicions, don’t assume shit. Because you know what they say about people who assume and you sure as hell made asses out of Dipper and me. You broke apart a family and broke my brother down. Don’t ever contact me or my family again.”_

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

After Gideon’s departure, people stopped giving them pitiful looks and only a couple people had stopped to ask them for details about their time with Bill, all questions ranging from more informative, “Mabel, how did you end up getting under Bill’s control?” to ever more crude, “So Dipper, how was it fucking a demon?” As a matter of fact, if things didn’t seem to be getting better, they were a hair’s length from moving back up to the old Northwest Manor with their Grunkles permanently but things were luckily starting to slowly go back to normal.

But nothing at all could spoil today. Not a darn thing because today is the day Dip-Dop gets to go back to work!

At first she was really afraid of his therapy sessions. She was really afraid that Dr. Parks was going to convince Dipper that he really was under Bill’s control but she didn’t. Dipper spoke really highly of her and even though he didn’t disclose that he wasn’t truly brainwashed to her, she gave him some solid advice and told him things that made him feel a lot better about his abnormal situation. She didn’t make him out to be the victim either. She made him feel right for making the best decisions that he could in that situation.

As a matter of fact, their therapy sessions had turned into more about getting over what happened with Hector than rather with what happened with Bill, and he said that she made the situation make sense to him and made him feel like he did everything he possibly could have done given the circumstances.

When Dipper and Mabel _finally_ talked about Bill and what happened at the fair, which didn’t happen until after they both took some time to cool off, they concluded that Bill was just trying to protect them, but Dipper was still pissed off at how he did it and honestly, so was Mabel. No one deserved that and Dipper did go through this short period of paranoia where he wondered if he was indeed actually brainwashed. He had nightmares and jumped at shadows. Mabel often found him sleeping in the couch or falling asleep in the same room with her as she worked on things for her shop.

But seeing him now and the progress he made, she was proud. Really proud of him for not breaking down and keeping his head held high. At first he was reluctant towards his sessions, but eventually he realized that there was absolutely no shame in getting help, even his problems turned out to be more with Hector than with Bill.

Dipper passed Mabel her coffee and said, “Thanks for walking us, but we’d better get going. It’s been months since I’ve checked in with any of the creatures in the forest and they’re probably either worried or started a war with each other.” Dipper kneeled on the ground and scratched Stella behind her ears. “Stella’s excited for her first trip into the forest, aren’t ya girl?”

Mabel couldn’t help but to smile. Taking care of Stella and having a constant companion seemed to help him a lot. “Hey, how about you take me for a walk in the woods this weekend. I think we could find ourselves a little adventure, just like the good ol’ days,” Mabel beamed. Dipper gave her a huge smile as he stood up, “Sure thing, Sis.”

Dipper stepped closer to the sheriff’s station and Mabel turned to wave goodbye when she heard static, a crackling noise, and then a _whoosh_!

Blue flames burst around the Sheriff’s Station and Mabel grabbed Dipper’s arm instinctively and pulled him backwards as he held tight onto Stella’s leash. “What the heck? Did Bill do this?!”

Dipper’s shoulders shook and he pulled away from Mabel. “Mabel, call the fire department hold Stella’s leash! I’ve got to get in there! Blubs and Durland are in there, and who knows if they have anyone in the cells!”

Before she could grab him again, Dipper ran towards the building, shrugging out of his coat and pulling it over his head for protection before jumping through the ever growing, wild blue flames. Mabel held onto Stella who was barking inconsolably as she pulled out her cell and hit 911.

\-----------------------------------------------------

Dipper looked around for Blubs and Durland, when he stepped on something. Some sort of broken glass, but he just scraped it off his shoe and continued his search. Whatever started the fire caused the flames to burst inside the building as well.

When Dipper finally spotted them, Durland was helping Blubs towards the exit. He had a limp, possibly from jumping out of the way of the flames.

“Hey, let me help you,” he said, immediately grabbing for Blubs on the other side but Blubs waved him off. “We have someone in the cell. It’s just one person. Go get him out,” he commanded as he and Durland hobbled towards the exit.

Dipper nodded, dutifully grabbing the keys from Blubs’ desk and went to the cell. There was a lone man in a hoodie and he was shaking the bars. He got really lucky the fire didn’t burst over here. “Don’t worry, I’m going to get you out of here,” Dipper said calmly. He raised his hand to unlock the cell door and as soon as it opened, he heard a small giggling noise from under the grey hoodie.

When Dipper looked up, he heard a deep voice say, “Pine Tree to the rescue, eh?”

This made him freeze just long enough for the stranger to pull him into the cell and throw him up against the wall, successfully knocking the wind out of him.

Dipper’s vision was blurred but he heard the sound of the cell door shutting. When he regained his senses, he saw the hooded figure standing there with a wide grin on his face, tauntingly swinging the keys on his index finger.

“Who are you?” Dipper asked. That voice didn’t belong to Bill.   

The figure just shrugged before turning on his heel and leaving. All Dipper could do was cover his mouth, close his eyes, and hope that the fire department would get there soon.

\----------------------------------------

Stan and Ford rushed down to the hospital as soon as they heard about Dipper getting trapped in the Sheriff’s Station cell. To their relief, Mabel was already standing by in the waiting room with good news, petting the dog Dipper and her had adopted. He was pretty sure they didn’t allow dogs in there, but that was the least of Stan’s concerns right now.  

“He just had some minor smoke inhalation. After a quick breathing treatment, he’s going to be right as rain. Blubs and Durland are fine too, but Blubs has a sprained ankle so he’s going to be stuck on desk duty for a couple of weeks,” Mabel quickly said.

“Geez, you kids are going to be the death of me some day. What started the fire?” Stan queried, needing to know all the facts of what happened.

“W-Well, the fire is still under investigation and they suspect arson, but,” Mabel trailed off and Ford gave her a pat on the shoulder. “You can tell us anything. What are you thinking?”

Mabel sighed and whispered, “The flames were blue to start with. But then they turned red-orange after a few minutes.”

“Bill,” Ford said through grit teeth and Stan stood his ground. He couldn’t actually believe Bill would do this to Dipper. Not after three months of not showing hide or tail and without saying a single word of gloating if he really did decide to try and kill him. “I don’t think so. Mabel said that the flames turned a normal color. Bill’s flames wouldn’t do that since they’re that weird magic-y stuff.”

“Grunkle Stan is right. Besides, we should really get the story from Dipper when he comes out. We won’t have long to talk to him because he and Durland have to go rent a temporary office while repairs are being made to the Sheriff’s building,” Mabel interjected.

Ford stiffened and then nodded, “Yeah, you’re right. We should really make sure Dipper is okay first.”

Almost as soon as he said that, Dipper walked out into the waiting room, holding some papers. Stan and Ford watched as Mabel crushed him into a hug and he gave her a quick hug before shrugging out of it. “Guys I’m fine, I promise,” he said, not really looking at any of them. “You were just in a fire, you’re not fine, Dipper,” Stan asserted and Dipper glanced at him. “Sorry for making you worry. But I have to meet up with Durland now-“

“Was it Bill?”

Dipper chewed his lip and looked away. “No it wasn’t. A _person_ did this. Not Bill.”

Stan felt a tug on his sleeve and turned around to see Mabel had her eyes set to pleading, “Grunkle Stan, do you think you can manage my store for a few days? I really want to help Dipper out with this. I’ll spend today showing you what needs to be done, just please?”

Stan looked between the concentrated look Dipper had on his face and Mabel’s wide eyes before sighing and replying, “Sure, Sweetie. I’ll watch the shop for you.”

\--------------------------------------------

Dipper patted Stella’s head as she padded around the office he and Durland rented. Durland was helping Blubs get settled into his temporary desk while Dipper entered data into the computer. The report from the GFFD about the cause of the fire should be coming in at any minute and Dipper was just waiting on the email.  

“Damn, and we lost every file we had too,” Blubs complained as he pulled out his laptop.

“Not exactly. During my days on desk duty, I brought us into the twenty-first century by creating on own private database online,” Dipper said, without looking up.

“It’s good to have you back, Pines. Damn that Bill Cipher for burning the place to the ground,” Blubs muttered.

“I actually don’t think it was Bill, guys,” Dipper said, trying not to grit his teeth.

“What do you mean?” Durland probed, stepping to look over Dipper’s shoulder.

“I mean, the flames changed color and that’s not Bill Cipher’s MO. Not to mention that he’s the type to stick around and gloat. No, I think there’s a person taking advantage of the Bill Cipher frenzy commit arson. Who was the person you had in the cell?” Dipper asked, typing away his theories and the facts.

Durland sat up and shook his head. “We didn’t get a chance to process him. He was just loitering about the station, causing a ruckus. Breaking glass bottles or something around the station.”

“He’s our top suspect right now because he’s the one that overpowered me and threw me into that cell,” Dipper stated, closing the laptop.

To say he wasn’t a little shaken by this would be a lie, but what he felt right now was pure determination. He was back in the game and he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt this sleepy town.

After typing for a few more moments, his laptop pinged with an email saying that the fire department has to wait for a day because they need to check to make sure the structural integrity of the building was still intact before sending the crew back in.

Biting his cheek, he slammed his laptop down. “I’m going to check on the forest before it gets dark. I need some air,” Dipper announced as he stood up and stretched.

“Are you sure that’s the safest thing to do right now?” Blubs asked. “I mean, if he threw you into the cell, that might mean that you were the initial target. For something like this to happen on your first day back on the job? It can’t be a coincidence.”

Dipper scrunched his face in thought. Blubs was right. He was the target but who in the hell _would_ target him? The possibility of Bill going crazy was there, but the crime didn’t match him at all. Who else would be targeting Dipper Pines?

He grabbed his keys and attached Stella’s leash to her collar. “I’ll be fine, fellas. Just take it easy, okay? I’ll be back in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~The plot thickens~


	8. It's Only You

Before Dipper even entered the woods, he received a stressed out phone call from Mabel begging him to wait on her, but he declined. He told her he was just going for a quick walk with Stella and then he would head straight home so he could talk with her and come up with theories on who would either attack Dipper or attack the Sheriff’s Station. She reluctantly agreed and said she would go shopping for dinner instead.

There was nothing against Mabel, but Dipper just felt the need to be alone for a little while. He was stressed. Stressed about this whole situation and he didn’t know which way to lean without falling.

The forest was quiet and serene. The crumpling of dead leaves underneath his footsteps paired with the chilled air made him feel more at ease. It was a weird feeling. He felt safer isolated in the woods than in town surrounded by a bunch of (misguided) people that care about him and his well-being. Maybe it would be best if he stayed away for a while. Remain a recluse after they catch the arsonist. Even though the GFFD hasn’t turned over evidence yet, Dipper knew that the fire was no accident.

He briefly considered leaving town, but there was no way he could leave his family. They were a comfort he could never bring himself to give up. Not right now anyway. Maybe in the future, if another path opened for him but right now he knew that this was right where he was supposed to be.

Dipper stepped along a familiar path, occasionally stopping to give himself and Stella some water. 

The deeper he went into the woods, the more he realized that he may have possibly made a mistake.

Dusk approached a lot quicker than what he was used to because of daylight savings. Darkness was upon him and Stella and he either had to find his way out quickly or find a place to camp for the night. The latter seemed like the most reasonable choice considering he had a nearby place in mind that he could crash until morning.

He pulled out his phone and sent a text to Mabel, hoping that as he walked his phone would catch a small signal and send the message. He’d hate to worry her, but he really didn’t feel like trudging through the woods at night either.

Dipper gave Stella a quick pat on the head and said, “This way, girl.”

\------------------------------------------------------

Bill’s senses were on edge. Someone was approaching his cabin and there were very few people who knew about its location. With a wave of his hand, all the lights went out and the cabin was glamoured on the outside to look like the rundown shack it was before Bill fixed it up. He decided to wait by where the front door opened, so if whoever was in the area decided to come in, Bill could surprise them.

If it was a random citizen, then he would wipe their memory and drop them in the middle of town.

If it was Gideon stalking him, _however,_ that was a horse of a different color and he would have some fun tormenting him.

Bill could hear the footsteps in the grass approaching. There were at least two different sets of steps from what he could tell. One set was significantly lighter than the other.

The door quietly swung open and to Bill’s luck, it didn’t hit him. Bill ducked his head and waited for the right moment when the voice he heard made his chest feel as if it broke into several dozen, tiny pieces.

“C’mon Stella, let’s wait here for daybreak.”

It was dark in the cabin and Bill held his hand to his mouth. He didn’t glamour the rest of the cabin and as soon as Pine Tree got some light in here, he would recognize the fact that Bill had been here all along.

He knew he should glamour the cabin and stay the night somewhere else, but before he had the chance to really react a bark in his direction led Pine Tree’s eyes to his.

 “B-Bill?” Pine Tree stuttered out and his chest began to ache more than usual. Even though they were both silhouetted, Bill’s eyes probably gave his identity away, especially because of the pounding in his chest that was so loud that his ears barely heard Pine Tree.

“Well, I never knew what awkward felt like until this moment,” Bill said, tilting his head and tried his best to flash a confident grin. With a snap of his fingers, the place was lit, but instead of taking note of his surroundings, Pine Tree’s eyes stayed on Bill’s.

“I’m leaving,” he said, and Bill panicked and slammed the door shut.

“WAIT! Please, wait.” _What’s wrong with me?_ Bill had decided to let Pine Tree live his life. Why did his body and emotions betray his decision now that they happened to stumble upon each other?

An unknown emotion flashed across Pine Tree’s eyes before he said, “Fine. I, uh, actually need to ask you something anyway.”

“Sure thing, kid,” Bill said, extending his arm to the direction of the couch for them to sit. The beast that Pine Tree brought with him growled lowly at Bill, but followed him anyway.

Pine Tree sat on the couch and with nowhere else to sit, Bill sat next to him. He wanted to be closer. The urge to put his arms around him and crush him into his body to the point of suffocation was almost too powerful.

“So, you’ve been hiding out here this whole time?” Pine Tree asked, not sparing Bill a glance. His former human companion instead opted to concentrate on scratching behind the dog’s ears.

“Yeah.”

“Have you been to town since then?”

“Only in disguise to pick up minor supplies like food and water,” Bill said with a shrug.

“Have you been to the Sheriff’s Station at all?” Pine Tree’s tone was the most serious Bill had ever heard him be.

“Not even once, kid.”

There was relief on the brunet’s face. “I thought so.”

Bill tilted his head curiously and queried, “Did something happen?”

Pine Tree just shook his head and looked towards the door. “Nothing that concerns you,” he said too coldly for Bill’s taste.

Bill’s eye twitched and he snatched Pine Tree by the chin to finally get a look into his eyes. “Tell me what happened. Even if you don’t I will find out eventually,” Bill sang.

Pine Tree stuttered for a moment before slapping Bill’s hand away and stood up to take a couple steps away from Bill. “It does _not_ concern you, Bill. You didn’t _care_ enough to stay so nothing in my life is your business anymore.”

Bill was taken aback by the kid’s statement. How dare he? How dare he accuse Bill of not caring when he left that idiotic, hillbilly town to protect him!

Bill’s anger flared and he stood up across from Pine Tree. “Oh, I didn’t care? _I_ didn’t care!? Pine Tree, if I stayed the entire TOWN would have hunted the Pines family down _along_ with me!”

“So? I was prepared to stay by your side! To fight for you! But you,” Pine Tree swallowed some air before continuing, “But _YOU_ wouldn’t stay and fight with me! I told you I was all in and I guess I was the only one!”

“Now wait a min-“

“And not only did you leave me! You led the town to believe I was brainwashed! Hell, I thought I was brainwashed again for a good couple of weeks! And to top it all off, you just disappeared! Stan was worried about you. _I_ was worried about you! The whole damn family was worried and you refused to contact us or pick up your phone!” Pine Tree yelled until he was blue in the face. Tears threatened to prick his eyes but he was fighting them hard.

“You know what Pine Tree? That’s extremely fucking selfish of you. What do you think would have happened if I stayed, hmm? Fez and Sixer would’ve had to skip town, Shooting Star’s business would’ve gone bankrupt! You might’ve been slaughtered because of the nature of our relationship would have made you an abomination in their eyes! Pine Tree, what I did wasn’t just for _MY_ wellbeing, but your entire family’s so don’t you go fucking blaming me for-“

“Oh hell no, you do NOT have the right to be angry here! I do! Bill, what you did fucking hurt like hell and they wouldn’t let me come back to work for _months_ because of that! You couldn’t even say ‘I love you’ back to me and that hurt Bill! That really fucking _wounded_ me and you had no idea!” Pine Tree interrupted Bill and before the demon could stop himself, he treaded threateningly towards him. His words struck a chord, but the pain his chest was lifted by his anger so he was starting to become beyond control.

“Oh, I don’t get to be angry? Pine Tree, Gideon took EVERYTHING that made me complacent in this world AWAY! Actually,” Bill let out a low chuckle as he continued stepping towards Pine Tree, who was backing up. The dog he brought with him ran to cower in another room because Bill’s furious aura couldn’t be contained any longer.

His eyes were red and he shoved Pine Tree up against the wall. “Actually he did worse than that. He made me give everything up in my own free will. Fez once told me that sometimes you have to let the things you care about go and live their lives and that’s what I had to do.”

Pine Tree’s figure was blurred through the rage, but Bill could hear his words as clear as day as he angrily said, “What the hell are you doing taking dating advice from a divorced man in his eighties!?”

There was something yanking at his hoodie and Pine Tree’s lips were on Bill’s. Suddenly, the blurred anger turned into a softer, different kind of fogged feeling. One that was familiar. One that was safe. One that he missed, dearly.

Bill returned the kiss with extreme fervor, quickly invading Pine Tree’s mouth with his tongue. He needed this, oh god, did he need this.

His hands moved from clenching Pine Tree’s shoulders to the buttons on his jacket as he grinded into him to let him know what his intentions were. Pine Tree’s back arched ever so slightly as he groaned into Bill’s mouth, frantic hands moving about Bill’s chest and shoulders, until finally settling for gripping his blonde locks until Bill’s hands were finished with his buttons.

Bill quickly removed Pine Tree’s jacket, keeping his mouth locked on his as if he never had the intention of removing his lips from his again. He missed this feeling and he would revel in it for as long as he could stand it.

Pine Tree’s hands ran down to the zipper of the hoodie Bill was wearing and Bill opted for running his fingers across the human’s arms, noticing that the skin didn’t feel right. Bill pulled from the kiss to examine his arms and what he found were patches of red scrapes up and down them.

“What happened?” Bill whispered. He looked directly at Pine Tree’s face, taking in that slowly recovering flustered look.

“An incident from earlier today,” he breathed. “Tell me,” Bill demanded, clutching Pine Tree’s wrist.

“Can’t we just-“

“After you tell me. Please, Pine Tree. You’re killing me here,” Bill pleaded and Pine Tree looked away for a moment.

“The station caught fire today. I was in it.”

“These aren’t burn marks, kid. Did you slip on your way out?” Bill asked before pulling up the arm and kissing each red mark.

“I was thrown up against a wall. Someone tried to- Well, someone tried to kill me today,” Pine Tree said and Bill’s heart nearly stopped. “What.”

“We’re still waiting on the details from the fire department, but I’m suspecting arson. I went to let someone out of their cell and they threw me in and locked me inside.”

“Who-“

 “We don’t know.”

Bill took a few moments to control his breathing and his hands began shaking. Pine Tree could have died. Pine Tree could have died and Bill would have turned that entire town to ash.

As if Pine Tree could sense his disturbed feelings, the brunet grabbed Bill’s head and pressed his forehead to his own. “Don’t worry. I’ll find out who it is in no time.”

He felt a familiar circling motion to his temples and Bill automatically felt himself relax into the touch. Something heaved in his chest and it was just _too damn heavy_.

“I missed you a hell of a lot, kid.”

“I know.”

Bill smiled and moved to kiss him again with something softer, sweeter. His heart ached to go home but he knew he couldn’t.

He began to wonder when he thought of his place by Pine Tree as “home”.

Pine Tree deepened the kiss and held it for a few blissful moments before pulling back. “I-I don’t know if I can stay here tonight.”  

Bill gave him a questioning, hurt look and Pine Tree quickly addressed it.

“I want to, I really do want to stay but you know things can’t ever go back to the way they were. Not here in this town. Not ever,” Pine Tree said, but Bill wasn’t really feeling the conviction.

“I know, I know. But you’re here right now, it’s dangerous at night so why don’t you stay and we can just pretend?” Bill offered. It’d be a temporary comfort and saying goodbye in the morning would be _LITERAL HELL_ but Bill just couldn’t let this opportunity pass them up.

Pine Tree sighed and rested his forehead on Bill’s shoulder. “I’ll stay the night, but just to sleep. I’m just- I’m just exhausted right now.”

That was good enough for Bill.  

_Hey. I think I love you too, kid._

 

 

 

 

The words didn’t come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my long absence! I was in and out of doctors offices for while but everything is A-Okay now! I'm sorry for not responding to the comments last time, ya'lls support means everything to me and keeps me going! 
> 
> Also, someone pointed out that my spacing with dialog was making it hard to read, so I spaced it differently this chapter so I hope it's easier on you! I will probably not go back to edit previous chapters, but I'll keep it this way from here on out. If there are any other problems such as spacing, grammar, or even tags that need to be added, don't be shy and let me know because when I edit these, it's usually late at night and I'm exhausted. 
> 
> Thank you for your continued support! ^-^


	9. Spend My Time With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning for the first half of this chapter!

Dipper reached out to brush a loose piece of hair back from Bill’s sleeping face. It was a weird gesture considering that Bill was usually so well groomed. With the daylight pouring in and without his emotions clouding his vision, he could tell Bill hasn’t really been properly taking care of himself. His face was a little sunken and his hair was starting to grow long and was extra choppy, as if he tried to cut it himself.

Bill first swatted at Dipper’s hand and then wove his fingers through his and gently rested them on the pillow. Bill’s eyes slowly creeped open, as if he wasn’t ready to face the reality of this morning where they would have to part. Dipper imagined his face reflected Bill’s. He wasn’t ready either. Not after last night. Not after having a huge fight with nothing truly resolved.

The two looked each other in the eyes for a few moments before Dipper finally decided to do something he knew he would regret later. He lifted his and Bill’s hands while leaning it to give him what was supposed to be a chaste kiss on the lips but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away and the longer he lingered the closer he felt himself lean until Bill finally unlaced their hands and grabbed Dipper by the waist, rolling the brunet on top so he could hold him with both arms.

Dipper adjusted his legs so he was properly straddling Bill without breaking the kiss. Before either of them really knew what was going on, the kiss deepened to a very heated level. They were gasping for air in each other’s mouths, tongues swirling around each other, re-familiarizing the taste of one another while Bill’s nails began to sink into Dipper’s waist and Dipper’s grip on Bill’s shoulder started to bruise him.

He knew he shouldn’t do this. It’d just going to make leaving harder. But the sweet taste of saliva mixed with Bill knowing exactly what to do with that tongue of his in Dipper’s mouth made the choice to stay for another hour and be late to work all the more irresistible. A slightly hardened motion upwards from underneath him melted what little resistance he had left away.

Dipper found himself sliding one knee between Bill’s legs to teasingly nudge Bill’s forming erection. The demon let out a pleasing gasp into Dipper’s mouth and the brunet trailed his fingers of his left hand down from clutching the pale shoulder to massaging Bill’s hipbone, earning another thrust from the man beneath him.

Unwilling to unlock their mouths just yet, Dipper proceeded to stroke Bill’s now completely hard member through his boxers. Bill bucked and struggled a little, as if he wanted to move his lips to a different location but Dipper held his shoulder tight with his other arm. Bill retaliated by digging his nails in and dragging them down Dipper’s back.

“A-ah,” Dipper breathed out, finally breaking the lip contact so Bill could nip at his jaw and reddened ears. The sensation was familiar and foreign all the same and he was savoring every moment of it as blood rushed to his own nether regions. He wanted to hurry up and take it slow all at the same time. He wanted so many things he couldn’t have right now.

Dipper had moved his arm to under Bill’s back and the demon had a hand pressed firmly into the back of Dipper’s neck, forcing him closer. Teeth sank into his neck and Dipper grinded his own erection into Bill’s. Bill let out a shaky breath at the sensation and the human felt a sense of pride at still being able to have this sort of effect on the demon’s body.  He allowed Bill to nibble at his neck for a few more seconds before sitting up.

Dipper tugged at the waistband of Bill’s boxers and he eagerly lifted his bottom so it was easier for him to slide them down so the flustered demon underneath him could finish kicking them off. Just as he was about to start kissing Bill’s abdomen, Bill had snuck a grip onto his forearm and pulled him down so his head hit the pillow by the headboard.

By the time Dipper reoriented himself, Bill was between his legs and kissing him with much heated fervor. It was desperate, hard, and a little sloppy but Dipper didn’t mind. His chest was tightening and the feeling in his groin was starting to ache. He bucked upward and Bill caught the hint and pulled Dipper’s own boxers down just enough to free his hardened cock.

Bill grasped it and Dipper hissed, “Too tight.”

Bill mumbled out an apology and loosened his grip and began stroking gently while bucking his own erection against Dipper’s. Dipper turned his head to let out a breathy moan as he moved with the touches.

The demon rested his forehead on Dipper’s shoulder as he kept a smooth pace and Dipper found himself wrapping his arms around Bill’s torso in an awkward hug, but he just wanted to feel close to him, even if was just for a little bit.

Bill’s pacing began to slow because of this and eventually he let go and sunk into the embrace, still moving his hips into the brunet ever so slightly. Dipper could hear him breathing in deep as his arms tightened around him.

Dipper’s eyes were closed as he let out little sighs as Bill gently rocked his hips as they embraced. There was something soft and sweet about this. Normally they wouldn’t be this gentle with each other but reality felt so fragile during these shared moments and tender touches that it felt as if it could shatter underneath their fingertips.

As his mind began to fog in every loving sensation, Dipper hips moved impatiently as if they had a mind of their own to let Bill know that he was ready for more.  

A sneaky hand found its way to Dipper’s nipple and began gently playing with it as Bill’s mouth moved down his chest, trailing it with saliva coated kisses. Dipper keened in response and grabbed a handful of Bill’s hair, unsure of what else to do with his hands.

Suddenly a moist, warmth enveloped his tip and slowly worked its way down, a tongue slicking the pathway as the mouth lowered onto him.

“Mmm, ah,” Dipper breathed out as he held onto Bill’s hand to cease the teasing of his nipple. He didn’t want to come from too much stimulation at once. Not now at least.

Dipper looked at Bill as he worked his mouth around his dick and held onto the demon’s hand and hair for dear life when a thought suddenly dawned on him.

“D-do, ah, do we have any lube?” he managed to get out. Bill pried his (wonderful) mouth away from Dipper and shook his head.

Dipper let go of Bill and let his head drop onto the pillow. “Fuck.”

“Ah, you seem to forget something,” he heard Bill say as he finished removing Dipper’s boxers and adjusted the human’s legs over his shoulder. Dipper looked up at him curiously as Bill licked his fingers (while making a show of it, of course) and lowered his fingers to align with his entrance.

Dipper was about to protest and say that saliva is a good enough lubricant, but as one invasive finger prodded him gently, he chewed his lip to bite back a moan from how warm and slick it was. “H-how-?”

“I still got _some_ magic, remember?” Bill chuckled as he slid his finger in and out. Dipper’s face flushed and arched his back as the demon did what he wanted down there.

“And what a good use for it,” Dipper muttered between breaths.

Bill quietly affirmed, “Mhm, I thought so,” as he kissed Dipper’s knee and added another finger.

The human let out a very audible gasp and whispered, “God, I missed this.” He had immediate regrets because that wasn’t meant to be said out loud, no matter how much his mind was yelling it into his ears at the moment.

 “Me too, kid,” Bill said as he began to move his hand faster, leaving Dipper a writhing mess with nothing to hold onto but the sheets underneath him.

“M-more,” Dipper managed to get out between his ever growing ragged breaths. Bill smirked down at the brunet, looking smug and inserted a third finger.

Bill’s eyes wandered over Dipper’s nude form hungrily before he clutched and sucked on his thigh, eliciting an unintelligible noise from the man he was pleasuring.

“How are you feeling?” Bill asked and Dipper could see a hint of desperation in his eyes.

“I’m ready,” he replied. Truth be told, he was beyond ready. His head was fogged in pleasure and he was already tipping over the edge.

Bill nodded and removed his fingers carefully before lining himself up with Dipper. Dipper’s back was flat against the bed and his breathed out a breathy moan as Bill slid in. He peeked up at the demon who had a very concentrated look on his face as he eased in and out, as if he was having trouble controlling himself.

“Faster,” he heard himself plead, halfway for his sake, half for Bill’s. Dipper wasn’t the only one who needed this and he was more than happy to have him.

Bill grunted out, “Someone sure got bossy,” before putting Dipper’s knees down and leaned over him properly with one hand to hold him up and the other stroking the human’s cock as he quickened his pace.

Dipper tried to move his hips in rhythm with everything Bill was doing to him, but it was impossible. He was a melting, moaning mess that desperately craved this demon’s affection, no matter how unhealthy the deluded town may think it is.

Relief flooded through his aching groin as Dipper came into Bill’s hand. The moment that happened, Bill released the dripping cock and placed his hands on the bed and roughly thrusted into him.

He leaned down and kissed Dipper with a sense of confidence and possessiveness, something that the rest of this interaction had been missing and Dipper returned the kiss vehemently as Bill’s movement became more ragged and his breathe shorted. He pulled out just in time to come on Dipper’s stomach instead of inside of him, mixing in with the white hot mess that was already there from when Dipper had released.

Bill broke the kiss with a gasp and leaned his head against Dipper’s. “I heard make-up sex was great, and I have to say I’m a fan.”

Dipper chuckled and pushed as his chest but he didn’t move. “Me too, but I have to get cleaned up. I’m already going to be late for work.”

“I don’t want to,” Bill said, meeting his gaze. “If I move, then you’ll walk out that door and I have no idea when I’ll see you again. Stay here with me. Blow off work. Blow off this town and we’ll run away together. Just you and me, kid.”

Bill’s plea caused Dipper feel a sense of Déjà vu. It felt kind of like the moment when Bill found out that Hector had made a deal with Ford and Mabel.

But this time the offer was so tempting that he could taste it on his tongue. Spend the day in bed with Bill, then at night, go back to his house and tell Mabel he’s leaving. That didn’t sound like a half bad plan.

But the more upstanding part of him knew that he had responsibilities that he couldn’t just abandon. He had people to protect.

“I can’t. I would actually really love to, but I have to find the arsonist,” Dipper said, pushing Bill again and this time he sat up.

“If you leave town, I can make it to where they’ll never find you. Ever,” Bill argued.

“Yes, but if we do that, then they might try to target my family. I have to find the arsonist. Then,” Dipper paused to breathe and think about what he wanted to say next, “Then we’ll talk. We’ll talk about what we want to do.”

Bill looked as if he were a dog with his ears perked up. “Really? So you’d give it another go? Even after our argument last night?”

“Well, yeah Bill. You’re the reason that I can argue now, remember? I mean, I’m still really mad about the whole situation, but I thought about it and I can kinda see where you’re coming from,” Dipper explained as he grabbed his boxers off of the floor. “And either way, I think it would be good for us to talk it out at the very least.”

“Yeah, yeah. I suppose you’re right. Bathroom’s that way, I locked your mutt in there last night,” Bill said while gesturing to a door.

“What the hell, Bill?! She’s probably been uncomfortable this whole time, don’t ever do that again.”

“Why? It’s just a dog. And there’s a rugs in there and I put a blanket on the floor so she’s fine.”

“She’s part of the family now so you’ll be nice to her,” Dipper said, trying to hold a glare at Bill but ended up laughing before forcing himself to stop.

Things were starting to feel too nostalgic and even though he felt a little better, his heart still ached over everything that had been lost.

\-------------------------------------------

The sound of Stella darting around the living room alerted Mabel to the fact that Dipper was home now. She rushed down the stairs and looked him straight in the eyes as he closed the door and turned around.

“Dipper Pines, do you have any idea how worried I was last night?!” Mabel huffed with her arms on her hips and her chest out before he could even say anything.

Dipper held his hands up in defense but that wasn’t going to stop Mabel’s tirade, “All I get is a text and then no word from you today, I was crazy concerned!”

“Listen, Mabes-“

 “A-buh-buh. Next time at least call me to let me know you’re okay,” Mabel said, crossing her arms over her chest with an air of authority. At least that’s what she was going for. People tend to call her ‘cute’ when she was trying to be serious and few people knew when she was being stern.

“Work was pretty crazy today. And also, I, uh, ran into Bill, Mabel,” Dipper said a little somberly.

Mabel blinked once. Twice. Three times. “What?”

“Yeah, I ran into Bill into the woods last night. He’s hiding out at the Raven Mocker’s old place. He did it up really nice so it’s actually livable now and-“

“Wait. Is that why you didn’t come home last night? Because you found Bill?” Mabel queried a bit suspiciously.

“No, that’s not why. I really got lost because I completely forgot about daylight savings time. I just needed a place to crash and I was going to leave when I found him, but I just,” Dipper’s thought went incomplete but Mabel could put two and two together.

“Do you think you two are going to try and get back together?” she asked.

“I don’t know, if I’m being honest. I want to, but if I do let him back into my life then we won’t- We’d be leaving this town,” Dipper said, looking away. He was shaking a little, like he was afraid he’d be disappointing her.

“C’mon, let’s go to the kitchen. I’ll make some tea and we’ll talk about it,” Mabel said with a smile and grabbed Dipper’s hand to lead him to the small kitchen table. Dip-Dop took a seat and Mabel used the time it took to make the tea to think about what she was going to say.

First, Dipper loves Bill and he wasn’t really his exact reason for going into therapy, Hector (and Mabel, being the grown woman that she is has accepted her blame in the whole fiasco as well) was the main reason he needed help.

Second, Bill treated him well. A LOT better than she had expected a former dream demon who tried to take over the universe to and that was respectable. He had been really introduced into the trials and tribulations of humanity and has learned to come to terms with it from what she has seen.

But, lastly, Bill is still dangerous to be around. The town would ostracize the entire Pines family if they knew the truth and who knows if Bill has any more enemies out to get him.

This entire situation was a mess, but in the end, Mabel decided to lean in a supportive way. Her brother is finally able to make his own decisions and she needed to respect that, especially since he’s not the type of person to do something like this lightly.

Mabel set the two mugs of hot cinnamon apple tea down and smiled at her brother. “You know, if you wanted to go, I’d support you.”

He gave her a relieved smile and nodded, “Yeah, I know you would. But I’d feel bad though. I feel like this is the first time we’ve _really_ been able to hang together since well, our teens.”

Mabel felt a sad smile tug at her lips. “I know what you mean. But I’ll call you and bug you constantly and make kissy noises at you and Bill through the phone,” she teased.

“Please don’t,” Dipper laughed but coughed to be able to look at her more seriously. “But, it’s not happening yet. We still have _so much_ to work out and also, I have to find the arsonist that blew up the Sheriff’s Station. We got a confirmed report saying that the explosion was on purpose, we just don’t have a real suspect since we don’t know who was in that cell.”

Mabel gave him a reassuring smile and grabbed his hand, “Don’t worry, Bro-Bro. If anyone can catch this guy, it’s you. And don’t forget that Paz and I are at your disposal for whatever you need.”

 “Thanks Mabes. I actually do need a favor,” he responded while looked down at his cup of tea.

“Anything you need, Brosky!” she eagerly replied.

“I need to talk to Gideon. Will you go with me when he gets back to town? I think we’ll need to double team him, but he’s been keeping a close eye on the town and I need to know if he’s seen anything suspicious. I don’t think a human was behind this, Mabel.”

Mabel’s eyes grew wide as she remembered her last encounter with him when she got her photo back. It was not pleasant at all.

_Hot Belgium waffles._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the smut was kinda added last minute as sort of an apology for making you guys wait so long last time. Hope you enjoyed! ^-^


	10. Reflecting Light

Dipper’s week had been a whirlwind of activities as he ran around town with Durland to try and talk to some people about getting a lead on the arson investigation while Blubs minded the main office. Meanwhile, Mabel was going through her connections with Paz to see if there was any gossip about anyone in town that seemed strange.

Well, stranger than usual.

But in the end, there were absolutely no leads because the only thing any witnesses noticed was a medium sized man with a hood up, which was information they already had. Mabel’s sources came up empty as well and Dipper could tell that she was pretty bummed about it.  

The brunet grasped the curly mess on his head in frustration as he stared at the case data he entered on his laptop. It would be only a couple more days until Gideon returned so he had to cling to the hope that he had some leads because his theories didn’t have any real backbone to them. Another dimensional demon was all he could think of, but that seemed pretty farfetched.

Something cold and wet touched the back of Dipper’s neck, causing him to yelp. Mabel’s chuckle reverberated in his eardrums after the shock as she placed a cold bottle of water in his hand.

“You need a break, bro-bro,” Mabel said, sitting across from Dipper on the loveseat in their living room.

Dipper rubbed his neck and rolled his head around trying to snap the crick that had formed in it out. “I really need to finish this case as soon as possible. Whoever did this is probably planning their next move as we speak.”

“Yeah, but you don’t focus well when you’re tired. Many of your shirts have been devoured that way,” she snickered.

“You’re right, but I’m restless. If I at least had a lead I’d be able to sleep knowing I had a trail to chase in the morning.” Dipper sighed began typing ‘ _I suck’_ over and over again on the computer before deleting it.

“How about we go talk to Ford tomorrow? You can bring that nerd game you bought before things got crazy to play with him and maybe he can give us some advice to point us in the right direction. Stan’s been worried about us too. Not that he’d say it out loud, but I can tell,” Mabel said enthusiastically.

It wasn’t a bad plan, but it would be like a break and research at the same time. It sure as hell sounded better than staring at the computer all day at least.

“Okay, that sounds good. We can drop by after I’m done at work. I’m going to go spend the afternoon with Stella checking the woods again.” Dipper finally shut his laptop, feeling a little bit better now that they had a game plan at least.

Mabel rolled her eyes and giggled, “ _Oh_ , going to _check_ on the woods. I get what you’re saying.” She emphasized her point with a wink, at the end of her sentence.

It took Dipper’s exhausted brain a moment to get what she was implying and he immediately blushed and shook his head. “No, I’m not-“

“Hold that thought bro, bro. I’m going to go grab a few clothes for you to take to him. It’s been getting colder lately and I’m sure he needs something to wear. Oh! Maybe some extra blankets and-“ at that point, Dipper couldn’t hear what she was saying since she continued talking as she walked into her room.

\--------------------------------------------------

When a knock rang in his ears, Bill didn’t need to even guess who was showing up. Pine Tree was the only one that knew this location and God help any other human that dared approached his cabin.

“Well, fancy seeing you here again,” Bill said with a wink as he opened the door but his expression went from charming to amused at how ridiculous Pine Tree looked carrying a large, overstuffed backpack and a rolling suitcase that had been hindered with leaves and twigs jammed in with the wheels. His mutt was off in the distance chasing some bugs, but Pine Tree barely seemed to notice with the weight he was carrying.

“Are you going to stand there, laughing like a dick, or are you going to help me?” Pine Tree whined so Bill grabbed the suitcase from him and moved out of the threshold, that way the poor human could follow him in. The dog immediately tried to run in with them but Bill closed the door before it could reach them while muttering a quiet, “oops,” under his breath.

The second Pine Tree was inside, he dropped the heavy backpack and it landed with a solid _thud._

“Geez, kid, what the hell did you bring?”

“Believe it or not, that sound was made by a crap ton of clothes Mabel wanted you to have,” Pine Tree said in between breaths.

“Y-you’re kidding. Clothes made that kind of noise?” Bill tried to not sound so horrified as he attempted to lift the bag. He was pretty impressed that Pine Tree actually carried this heavy-ass load through the woods.

The kid plopped down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “You got that right. I was supposed to spend my work day doing recon in the woods, but I think I’m just going to stay on this couch until I die.”

Bill chuckled and gave up trying to pick up the bag, and instead chose to relieve the poor sack of its contents. It seemed Shooting Star filled it with at least three heavy jackets, eight sweaters, a pair of snow boots (which was probably the real source of that heavy thud), and five pairs of sweatpants made with an exceptionally thick material.

“Shooting Star really went all out, didn’t she?” Bill murmured as he folded. “Also, what were you hoping to gain by searching the woods for your arsonist? Whoever it is was probably working alone.”

Pine Tree’s head perked up at Bill’s mention of the fire-starter. “I have a feeling it’s not a normal human that did it.”

“Duh-doy, Pine Tree. But the creatures in the forest respect you because you saved them _from me_. Plus, I already checked out a few sources and I may have started lurking around town at night,” Bill admitted.

“What?! Bill, what the hell happens if you get caught?”

“I teleport,” Bill immediately deadpanned.

“Oh, right.” Pine Tree leaned back into his spot on the couch and Bill joined him.

“So what else do you have planned for today? You can stay the night again if you want. I promise I won’t lock your mutt in the bathroom this time,” Bill said, tilting his head and giving the kid an innocent smile.

“No, I can’t. I have plans with Mabel today to see if Ford knows has any notes that can help us.”

“Yeah, if anybody could figure out what’s going on, it’s that brainiac. I mean for starters, he doesn’t have to hide out in a cabin in the woods.” The demon shifted uncomfortably and quietly added, “Just keep me posted. I want to find this bastard so we can get on with our lives.”

“Yeah,” Pine Tree stated, a disheartened look falling upon his face.

“Why so glum, kid? Buck up, because we’re going find out who started the fire and then we’ll be able to do whatever we want,” Bill cheered, slapping Pine Tree on the back while doing so.

“You’re right, I just wish,” Pine Tree said but stopped short of just finishing his thought. Instead he shook his head and continued, “Never mind, let’s just put an end to this madness.”

Bill felt another strange emotion softly click inside of him. This one was overwhelming as he looked upon the drained look in Pine Tree’s eyes. Everyone has been having a rough time, but Pine Tree has had it worse. Something inside of Bill wanted to give him something, anything to bring back that spark he had before this whole mess.

He grabbed Pine Tree’s hand and held it against his chest with both hands. “I promise that once this is over, I’ll give you anything you wish for, just as long as you stay by my side. How does that sound?”

Pine Tree looked taken aback by the sudden bout of affection, but nodded nonetheless. Blue flames immediately erupted from Bill’s hands, sealing their deal.

“Bill, what are-“

“Pine Tree, this isn’t an official deal. Let’s consider it more of an oath if you will,” Bill quickly defended against the start of panic in the kid’s voice. “I –uh, I just wanted assurance that you’ll come back to me after this.”

Pine Tree looked between their fiery hands and Bill’s eyes. “A-an oath? So it’s more like a promise. A promise to be together?” The kid looked at their glowing hands as he processed what he just agreed to.

Bill nodded as the fire dwindled until there was nothing left of it. “Exactly. You and me together until these meat sacks meet their demise and I can return to my former, insane, glorious self!”

Pine Tree stuttered and his face burned bright like a Christmas tree. Before either of them could say anything, a gentle scratching at the door and a low whine interrupted them.

The kid took his hand back and gave Bill an annoyed look, even though his cheeks still remained red. “Seriously? If you want to stay together, Stella is part of the package and you’re going to have to treat her better,” he huffed as he opened the door.

The dog jumped onto Pine Tree was she scratched behind her ears. He happily cooed at her for a couple of moments before turning back to Bill. “I should leave. Um, try to stay warm and I’ll come back here in a couple days. If it gets too cold for, teleport to my place after the sun sets but you gotta be out of there first thing in the morning if you do.”

Bill simply nodded as he watched Pine Tree rush out of here. Bill’s magic kept this place pretty warm, but how could he resist a chance to pop in on Pine Tree whenever he felt like?

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

Mabel glanced at her blushing brother. He claimed he was just tired after his trek in the woods, but she wasn’t buying it. She could always tell when Dipper was thinking about something. He always scrunched his face and peered downwards.

Luckily, Mabel was the one driving the car or else Dipper might drive them right off the side of the road! She stared hard at the road before simply sighing out, “Won’t you please tell me what’s going on?”

She could see through her peripheral that Dipper was shifting in his seat, vehemently crossing his arms in a huff.

“F-fine. It’s just that Bill, um, he said something and it just threw me off,” he finally stuttered out. “I think that I kinda made a deal with him?”

“YOU WHAT? Dipper, why would you make a deal with him? I thought he was past making deals with people for the time being,” Mabel angrily spat out as she gripped the steering wheel harder.

Dipper was quick on the defense. “He is, Mabes! He said it wasn’t a real deal, more like an oa- er, promise really. He asked that after we take care of the arsonist, that we continue being together.” Dipper breathed in before quietly saying the next word, “Forever.”

It took all of Mabel’s willpower to not slam on the breaks so she could turn to him and talk. “Like, forever _forever?_ Like a proposal?” she beamed.

This would be so great for her brother. This town was great and all, but there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for him here. He deserved to be at a fancy research lab or out in the work field having an adventure every day. Staying with Bill would mean that he would leave this town and be able to go after those opportunities. Though, it would mean she’d get to see him a lot less but now that Mabel is older, she felt as if she could live with that. Dipper deserved the best since he had his teens and part of his early adulthood robbed from him.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that, but he wants me to stay with him until ‘our meat sacks expire’ or something like that,” he said, utilizing air quotes.

Mabel pulled into the driveway of the old Northwest Manor and put the car in park. She turned in her seat and leaned towards her brother. “Bro, that’s what marriage is.”

Dipper’s eyes darted away uncomfortably and said, “No, no, we’re just going to-“

“I know you’re a little young for marriage, but I approve! And I’m sooo planning your wedding,” Mabel excitedly said to slightly tease her brother before unclicking her seatbelt and jumping out of the car.

Dipper shook his head and followed her slowly to the front door, holding the game he bought. They didn’t knock since their Grunkles knew that they were coming today so they just headed straight up to the room where Ford kept his records.

Mabel knocked twice on the door before opening it. “We’re here,” she sang out as she stepped inside.

Grunkle Stan greeted, “Hey kids!” as he sat with Ford at a small table. “Me and Poindexter here were just wondering when you’d finally show.”

“Sorry it took so long. Mabel was driving,” Dipper said, elbowing Mabel in the side.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re so sleep deprived that if you were driving, we wouldn’t have made it, so shush,” Mabel defended with an eye roll before sitting down at the table the Grunkles were sitting at.

“Where’s that dog of yours? I bought her a bone,” Stan said with a large grin. He tries to act like he’s not an animal person, but he totes loves animals. Mabel figured that out a long time ago.

“Oh, we left her at home. When Dipper came home from work, the poor thing was exhausted,” Mabel explained, recalling how Stella immediately lied down on the cool tile floor of the kitchen. It was starting to become freezing outside, but Stella had been getting a work-out while scoping the town with Dipper.

“So did you guys have any luck thinking of anything?” Dipper asked hopefully as he took a seat next to Mabel and set the box down in front of them.

Ford shook his head, “Afraid not. None of my research is helping. What do you got there, Dipper?”

“Oh, um, I bought a new campaign set of Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons for us to play if we don’t find anything of substance,” Dipper smiled and tapped his fingers on the box as he explained.

“Oh, that sounds like an interesting game. How do you play?” Ford asked, causing Dipper and Mabel to freeze for a moment.

“What?” the younger twins asked in unison.

Stan face-palmed as Ford repeated his question a little awkwardly.

“H-how do you play?”

“What do you mean, ‘how do you play’? We played this game years ago, back at the Mystery Shack. Don’t you remember? I mean, you should remember since you remembered how to play after thirty years of dimension hopping!” Dipper started saying, but his voice escalated into an accusatory tone.  

Mabel looked Stan dead in the eyes and simply asked, “What aren’t you telling us?” She wasn’t going to take any crap excuse they through at them and she made sure her eyes reflected that feeling.

Stan let out a resigned sigh and said, “The jig is up, Ford. Let’s tell the kids.”

Ford looked at the table for a moment before nodding. He then looked up at Mabel and Dipper and said, “Yes, we can’t keep it a secret anymore. Kids, after what happened with the showdown with Hector, I was struck with amnesia. I can remember the last ten years, but everything before that is a blur.”

Mabel remained silent, but Dipper’s fists were shaking on the table. “You’ve kept it from us for this long? Why?” he asked.

“We just didn’t want to worry you kids. You already have enough on your plate and this was something that no one can really help. My memories can only come back naturally,” Ford said, but Mabel bit her lip. Something didn’t feel right. Maybe she was paranoid after what happened with Hector, but there felt like there was more going on here.

“Yeah, but a heads up would have been nice so wouldn’t be caught off guard here!” her brother said, while standing up. They were both annoyed and tired of secrets so Mabel stood up directly after him.

“We’ll leave. I’ve gotta do some research,” Dipper coldly stated as he moved towards the door. Mabel gave her Grunkles a small smile before following.

“I’ll walk you out,” Stan mumbled as he left Ford sitting alone at the table.

Mabel watched Dipper stomp down the hallway without waiting on here, so when he was out of earshot, she turned to Stan and quietly asked, “If something _really_ serious was going on, you’d tell us, right? Dipper and I, we’re not kids anymore. We can help is something is happening.”

Stan fidgeted for a moment and shook his head. “No, sweetie. If _something_ comes around that’s too big for me to handle on my own, I promise you kids get the first phone call.”

Mabel eyed him for a moment, but he had his poker face on.

“You better,” was all she said before rushing down the hall to catch up with Dipper.


	11. Dragon Night

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell us! I mean, it’s not like we couldn’t have handled it. Actually, we could have been helpful, I mean we helped Stan get his memories back,” Dipper ranted. Oh, he was certainly in a ranting mood after they found out about Ford’s missing memories.

“Yeah, but Grunkle Stan’s case was different. Ford got injured and those memories have to come back on their own,” Mabel said with a hint of a whine in her voice.

Dipper could tell she was ready for this conversation to be over and he _tried_ to stay quiet, but being quiet led to him working himself up and working himself up led to him talking about it again. He was stuck in quite the vicious cycle.

“Yes, I know,” Dipper said and let out a frustrated groan.

He clicked on the radio and the hosts were talking about another failed attempt to catch the Gobblewonker in the lake. They finally found the real deal about four years ago and they’ve been trying to catch it since. There was no real purpose to it since it didn’t really seem to affect the fishing season at all. Though, they apparently managed to tangle it in the net this time, but it swam to the bottom of the lake to escape pulling on the boats so they had to cut it loose. The netting they used eventually washed up on shore.

Not really in a mood to think about monsters or monster hunting, Dipper leaned his seat back and closed his eyes while Mabel drove them home. He needed to compartmentalize and think of something else for a while but only stressful things came to mind. He needed to find the arsonist, he worried for his Grunkles, and Bill was still alone in the woods.

Bill.                 

Bill wanted to stay with him. That was a good thought. Their deal wasn’t exactly like marriage like Mabel was saying. Bill didn’t seem to be the marrying type and Dipper wasn’t sure if he exactly wanted to do the whole wedding and ‘til death do we part thing either. But he seemed to be attached to Dipper enough to want him around for a long time at least. And that was a thought that made Dipper happy. Bill was charismatic and powerful enough to make his way through the world without any help now but he was still choosing to stay in Gravity Falls to wait for Dipper.

“Uh, bro? Do you know who’s truck that is?” Mabel’s voice broke through his happy thoughts and he sat up to see a large green pickup parked in their driveway, and someone with a bushel of red hair sitting on their stoop.

“Wendy!” Dipper exclaimed and Mabel gasped audibly as she parked next to the green truck.

The twins were out of vehicle as quickly as they could move and ran up to their old friend.

“What up, dudes?” she greeted. “Haven’t seen you much since your home coming.”

“And who’s fault is that? You keep leaving town for work before we even get a chance to hang out,” Dipper said, giving Wendy a light punch in the shoulder.

Wendy chuckled out, “I know I know, I’ve been feeling bad, especially with everything you were going through. You’re fine now, right? No more Bill in your head?”

Dipper’s shoulders immediately dropped and he nodded his response but Mabel was there to pick up the slack for him. “Nope, no more Bill! Say, do you want to come in and see Dipper’s dog?”

“Heck yeah, I do!” Wendy beamed and Dipper let out a small sigh of relief as Mabel moved to unlock the front door. Stella was happily sitting on their couch waiting for them to come inside. She didn’t move from her spot until Dipper clicked his tongue and then she came barreling towards the trio.

“Her name is Stella,” Dipper explained Wendy bent down the pet her.

“Stella? That’s a good name.” Wendy smiled as she pet Stella the ice finally felt broken again. Wendy stayed for dinner and spent some time with Dipper and Mabel watching the television and laughing like old times. That was until the news came on, recapping the events this week, including the arson attack on the Sherriff’s Station.

“Oh, by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you have any leads on that arsonist?” Wendy asked?

Dipper shook his head, “No. I don’t think a human did it though. I know Gideon was skulking around town before everything that happened, so Mabel and I were going to ask if he had seen or heard anything during that time when he gets back tomorrow.”

“Oh, he’s already back,” Wendy announced and Dipper nearly jumped up out of his seat to grab his hat and go, but he refrained.

“Really? Why is he back so early?” Mabel asked.

“He was recruited to dredge the lake for the Gobblewonker. So was I, that’s why I’m back in town today as well,” Wendy explained casually as if they should have already known that. Though Dipper’s mind had been preoccupied with the arson and finding Bill so he didn’t really pay that much attention to what’s going on around town.

“Geez, well I need to talk to him, ASAP,” Dipper said, standing up. “Mabel, grab your coat. Sorry to cut this short Wendy, but I’m sure you understand.”

“Yeah, dude. I get it,” Wendy said while standing up. “You find the jack-ass that did this.”

Dipper gave her a smile as she headed out the door and called out, “Don’t worry, I will!”

“Geez, I thought she’d never leave,” A loud, slightly obnoxious voice said from the stairway, making both twins nearly jump out of their own skins.

“B-B-Bill?” Mabel sputtered out.

“The one and only. Pine Tree said I could crash here at night if the weather got too cold, and man did that storm really kick up a cold front,” Bill stated with a cocky grin.

“Storm?” Dipper asked as Mabel ran towards Bill and threw her arms around him.

“We were worry about you, you idiot! No call, no note, you just up and disappeared!” Mabel said and Bill held his arms out awkwardly, like he didn’t know what to do, which was a mistake since Mabel immediately moved to put him in a head lock.

“Ow, OW!”

“Say you’re sorry!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Bill spouted out in a desperate attempt to be able to move again and Mabel mercifully let him go and Dipper laughed as the demon rubbed the soreness of his neck. “Geez, Shooting Star, you really got a grip there!”

“And don’t you forget it! And you better check in with the Stans, they’ve been worried too,” Mabel chided and Dipper peeked behind the curtain and out the window. The pitter patter of rain was evident with flashes of lightning danced around high in the sky.

“Man, this storm really snuck up on us. I guess we’ll see Gideon tomorrow,” Dipper disappointedly thought out loud. He then dropped the curtain and turned back to Bill. “Hungry? We got some leftovers.”

Bill excitedly nodded at the prospect of having food that isn’t canned or room temperature and practically skipped to the kitchen.

Even though he’s barely been around for a minute, this house was already starting to feel like a home once again, with him around.

\------------------------------------------------------

The rain persisted well into the morning, and Mabel was tempted to use that as an excuse to forgo seeing Gideon, but knew the importance of the situation. The sooner they do it, the better.

“I can’t believe how hard it’s raining,” her brother complained while looking out of the kitchen window. Bill had his arm around him and started saying things that Mabel couldn’t hear from the kitchen table. Dipper had insisted he stayed in the house today because of the sudden downpour. The weather channel warned about small dime sizes pieces of hail later in the afternoon because of the cold. As a matter of fact, the weather person was just as confused about the how quickly the rain started as the rest of them.

It was nice having Bill back around though. Dipper wasn’t sulking or stressing out for the first time this week and that was a really good thing to see. Eventually the two turned back to Mabel and Dipper  said, “Ready, Mabes?”

Mabel nodded and stood up from her seat, “Yeah, I’m ready Dip Dop. Bill, you’re not going to, I dunno, let Dipper’s dog run around in this storm, are you?” she asked, recalling how Dipper told her about how Bill locked Stella in the bathroom when he found him.

Bill rolled his eyes, “Sheesh Shooting Star, where’s the trust? I know how to take care of a mangy mutt, okay?”

Mabel shook her head, “Fine, let’s just hurry up and get this over with.”

Dipper nodded and moved away from Bill to walk with Mabel towards the door. “Be sure to stay away from windows,” he warned, not just because of the chance of hail, but just in case someone is nosy enough to come sniffing around here in this awful weather.

Bill simply waved them off instead of saying anything as they left to talk to Gideon. Dipper had messaged him first thing this morning to make sure he would be at home, and Gideon was a little over enthusiastic about them coming for a visit, but hopefully that just meant that he was more than likely willing to give them information.

Dipper and Mabel spent the car ride going over what they were going to say to him to try to get in an out as quick as possible. They rolled into his driveway a little too quickly for what Mabel preferred but perhaps looking at it as the “ripping off the band-aid” approach would make her feel better about this.  

Dipper dug out the umbrella and so he could walk to Mabel’s door and walk her to the front door without them getting wet. They had barely knocked twice before Gideon opened the door and said, “Well bless my stars, I thought I’d never see the day when Dipper Pines would want to meet up with me!”

Mabel stepped inside while Dipper closed and shook the umbrella out before setting next to the door. “Well, I figured it’s about time I visited. It’s been a few months since we saw each other.”

Gideon walked them to the couch as he spoke. “It’s completely understandable, you’ve just had one ordeal after another, now haven’t you?”

“I sure have,” Dipper responded as he took a seat on the couch. Mabel sat next to him as Gideon sat in the chair across from them. “Though I have to confess, I actually came here to ask you a few things.”

Mabel admired how smooth Dipper was being, all things considering. Maybe having Bill around again put him in a better mindset because he knows everything wasn’t lost. “Yeah, we’re actually curious to see if you have any info that could help us with the arsonist. You heard about what happened at the Sheriff’s Station, right?” Mabel chimed in.

“Oh yeah, the good folks that live here filled me in yesterday at the lake. It’s quite awful that it happened, but what makes you think I would have any useful info?” Gideon asked, crossing his arms.

“Well, I know that you were doing some paranormal investigating of your own, and I thought we could trade notes,” Dipper said, leaning forward.

“And why would you want to do that? I thought this was about the arson?” Gideon’s tone was pretty serious, but Mabel just observed the conversation between them, hoping to catch some subtext.

“Because I don’t think a human did this. No, whoever did this specifically targeted me and there’s no _human_ in this town that would do that, don’t you think?” Dipper said, in one of the most serious tones she ever heard him speak in.

If Mabel didn’t know any better, she’d think that Dipper was accusing Gideon. Though it was pretty suspicious that he was in town without the twins knowing. Heck, he was in town for a while before he finally called Bill out so who’s to say he ever really went home?

“Well, that certainly seems true. If you’re asking if I know anything, I’m sorry but I don’t,” Gideon said, looking away.

“Oh really, there’s nothing you’ve seen that could help us at all? Nothing you can think of? There’s someone running around, plotting and planning to attack anyone of us again and you have _nothing_ to offer?” Mabel snapped. Gideon’s body language was saying that he did know something. The way he avoided eye contact and crossed his arms made him look as if he was shrinking into himself.

“Well, I might have one thing. I didn’t ‘xactly figure out that Bill was here on my own. I received an anonymous tip about it. I assumed that it was sent by a concerned citizen that figured it out, but didn’t know what to do about it, but with the arson, there might be something more,” Gideon guiltily admitted.

Dipper glanced at Mabel and they both knew that they got what they came here for. “Thank you for your time Gideon. That actually helped some,” Dipper said.

“Wait, did you figure something out just from that?” Gideon queried.

“Yes. Let’s just say Bill was kind of a constant shield, and with him gone my family and I are walking targets now,” Dipper stated coldly as he stood up, Mabel mirrored his movements.

“What? Bill was protecting you? There’s no way,” Gideon loudly stated, standing up as well.

“Well, if he was _using_ us like you stated, he’d want to protect his assets, wouldn’t he?” Mabel answered with her own question. Gideon’s face had a very confused look on it. She couldn’t give anything about their old deal with Bill away. Not now, not when Dipper was getting closer to finding happiness.

“We’ll call if we have any other questions,” Dipper said as he and Mabel walked towards the door, but Gideon’s voice stopped them.

“Wait!”

The twins turned back towards the light haired man to see him trembling. “I think I may have messed something else up.”

Mabel and Dipper glanced at each other and then stared hard at Gideon.

“I might have bitten off more than I can chew and I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I just did two chapters with in the span of a week! Look at me go! I actually sat down and got an outline together instead of keeping it all in my head like I did with the last fic because I want to have this fic finished by the end of June! And I plan on finishing this entire series by the end of August so I can move onto other projects. So as a result, the chapters are a little shorter, but there will be updates more often as long as things go according to plan, so wish me luck guys! 
> 
> If you're wondering what kind of projects, I'd like to start making comics and here's a small example of the format it's going to be in. I haven't decided if my big comic project is going to be Klance or Billdip yet, because I'm in both hells right now. 
> 
> http://purplerivulets.tumblr.com/image/160236910145
> 
> And as always, thank you for your continued support!


	12. Epiphany

Dipper pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in frustration. “Are you serious?” Gideon had just revealed to Dipper that one of the bigger aspects of his personal research over the summer and that was indeed that the Gobblewonker was a type of water dragon.

And they managed to piss it off.

Now, the thing about certain water dragons is that they have control over the weather. If they don’t soothe the beast, Gravity Falls could be wiped out by a storm caused by townsfolk themselves. Dipper was feeling petty and halfway wanted to just let them deal with their own mistakes, but the better, more overpowering side of him knew that he was going to have to jump into the fray and figure this mess out. Not to mention it was literally in his job description to take care of this.

“Reckless,” was the only thing that the annoyed brunet could mumble out at this point as he reached for his phone to call Blubs and Durland.

“Excuse me?” Gideon asked, his eyebrow slightly twitching. “At least I’m going after monsters instead of letting myself be controlled by them.”

Something snapped in Dipper in that moment. Maybe it was the stress of having people lie and keep secrets from him. Maybe it was the pressure of having to take care of a lot of serious issues at once. Or possibly Bill really has been a bad influence on him.

But Dipper would later come to realize that there was no real excuse for this behavior as his fist met with Gideon’s jaw.

Gideon stumbled back and then jumped towards Dipper, landing his knee into his gut. Dipper staggered, clutching where Gideon had hit him for a brief moment. Dipper almost decided that this was the time to walk away until he saw the smirk on Gideon’s face. He had never wanted to wipe a smile off someone’s face so fast before so the next thing Dipper knew, he was on top of Gideon, punching him repeatedly until Mabel finally got a good grip under his arms and yanked him off.

“Dipper, what the hell is wrong with you?” Mabel’s angry voice was a very sobering sound. Dipper immediately stopped struggling and shook himself out of Mabel’s grasp.

“Sorry,” he mumbled to Mabel who had to watch him lose it. He was however, not sorry for punching Gideon’s lights out. Gideon sat up and a rubbed his jaw. He had a bloody nose and a couple of bruises, but other than that, he didn’t seem to beat up.

“Geez Pines, Bill must have messed you up more than I thought-“ his sentence was punctuated with a slap from Mabel.

“Don’t you ever bring him up again,” she warned.

Dipper couldn’t see, but she must have had a terrifying look on her face because Gideon’s eyes were so wide from fear that the looked like they could pop out of socket at any minute. Not to mention the fact that a slap on top of a punch to the face probably hurt like hell.

“You’ve caused us enough problems, Gideon. Don’t worry, we’ll keep cleaning up after you though,” Dipper said coldly before grabbing Mabel’s wrist and hurried back to the car before he felt the need to attack him again.

Mabel slid into the driver’s seat, knowing that her brother was too incensed to drive them back safely. But almost as soon as they were on the road she quietly started to ask, “Do you want to talk-“

“No,” Dipper replied sharply.

The rest of the drive back the house was quiet. Dipper didn’t feel like talking just yet. He was too angry, but he knew he’d have to call Blubs and tell him about what Gideon said. This was a matter that couldn’t be left alone for too long, lest Gravity Falls gets flooded and swept away in a monsoon.

Dipper imagined that they had a least a week. Tops.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill was naturally bored sitting at the house all by himself, so as a creature that used to feed of off information with his omnipresence, he decided to do what he did best. Snoop.

He spent a good hour and a half pouring through Pine Tree’s notebooks and skimming through his documents on his computer.

“Interesting,” he mused out loud when he noticed that Pine Tree had an entire notebook dedicated to Hector’s big plan. He knew Pine Tree had other suspicions he voiced, and thinking of that caused something to click into place inside of his tiny, primitive, human brain. He felt so stupid that they hadn’t even considered this before!

Hector had a partner. And his partner is targeting the Pines family instead of Bill.

It made perfect sense that Hector and Mr. No Name Yet decided to team up since Bill had a deal that bonded him to the Pines family. But now Hector is out of the picture so the only target here is the Pine Tree and his family.

The sound of the front door opening caught Bill’s attention and he immediately ran down the stairs. Pine Tree had a foul look on his face and Shooting Star looked annoyed.

“Well I suppose Gideon had no info?” Bill questioned, taking note of the atmosphere.

“Oh no, he had plenty to offer, he’s just a dick,” Shooting Star said as she shrugged off her coat to hang by the door.

“Oh? What did you find out?” Bill asked, eagerly. He wanted to see if what Gideon said lined up with his theory.”

“Well, first of all I have a monster problem to deal with,” Pine Tree mumbled as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “And secondly, Gideon received an anonymous tip that you were hiding out in town.”

“BINGO!” Bill’s sudden shouting made the twins flinch and they both gave him a slightly annoyed, but curious look.

“Pine Tree, remember how we talked about Hector having a partner?” Bill asked enthusiastically. 

“Well, yeah but they were targeting you specifically though,” Dipper argued.

Bill clicked his tongue. “Oh, my dear sweet Pine Tree, how wrong you are! You see, I was snooping through your things while you were gone and I figured out that Hector teamed up with someone targeting your family to wipe all of us out! But now that Hector is literally taking a dirt nap, his partner is only out to get you and you’re family!”

Bill laughed with the type of insane, joyful laughter that only he could do. If the Pines twins didn’t know him well enough by now, they might’ve thought he was laughing directly at them, but really he was just happy that ALL the pieces were coming together. He and Pine Tree could leave this godforsaken freak show of a town and find an even weirder place to live. Bill was feeling partial to taking Pine Tree monster hunting in Japan, but that was a discussion for later.

“Holy guacamole! Whoever sent that letter to Gideon, must have wanted to separate Bill from us so we’d be easy targets!” Shooting Star wildly exclaimed.

“Yeah, and Hector might’ve manipulated the situation so the Stans’ deal with Bill would be broken, hence why he went out of his way to make a deal with Ford,” Pine Tree deliberated out loud. “But what did he have to gain by involving me and Mabel at the time?”

“Because you have, well had, information, Pine Tree. I don’t know how you managed to get dirt on Hector, but you sure as hell did. If he was found out before your pain in the ass Grunkles made it back home, then his plans would’ve been up in smoke,” Bill pointed out.

“I wish I had my journal from back then. I before he erased my memory, I might’ve known who his partner was,” Pine Tree was feeling frustrated so Bill decided to share a piece of information that has been in the back of his head for a little while now. Something that occurred to  him while he had to meditate to keep himself from burning down this entire town.  

“Well, if you had any information in your old journal that was useful to him, Hector might’ve kept it around instead of destroying it. He never really was as good as memorizing things, as opposed to yours truly,” Bill boasted. “And it just so happens that I found out where Hector’s human meatsack resided while I was doing my nightly recons.”

“Oh really? Where?” Shooting Star queried.

“It’s just a few miles away from the lake,” Bill shrugged, feeling smug and proud of himself. The natural way he was supposed to feel unlike the rest of the emotions this flesh bag burdened him with.

Pine Tree looked at Mabel and then looked at Bill with a grin on his face.

“Well that’s convenient because we have to go fight the Gobblewonker.”

Bill’s chest did a small flutter at that happy grin. Human emotions weren’t so bad, were they?

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Gideon felt a little shaken up from that encounter as he pressed a bag of ice up against his swollen cheek. He probably instigated Dipper more than he should have, but he felt frustrated. Unrecognized for his hard work.

Sure, the town has welcomed him back with open arms since he pointed out Bill being back, but Dipper and Mabel seemed more frustrated with him than anything.

_Why?_

Gideon didn’t have to think hard about this. There were two options in front of him; the first being that Bill never really released them from his spell. The second, they genuinely liked that no good demon now. Both were awful the think about, but the prior would be easier to deal with. The latter, not so much. If they cared for Bill then that means that they had defected to be on his side.

But was that such a bad thing?

From his gathered intel, Cipher was just living a normal life with the twins. He didn’t harm a fly and he was duly affection towards Dipper. Even the regular customers at Mabel’s store seemed to adore him!

Had Bill changed? Or had the Pines changed?

If Bill had changed, does that make him any more forgivable? To Gideon, not so much but to the Pines, however, that seemed to be the case.

Is that the difference between him and everyone else? Forgiveness? That’s all he wanted out of life was his own forgiveness but every attempt he made just made things worse. He knew he said some things he shouldn’t have said but he just wanted to be recognized by the _real_ heroes.

But maybe that ultimately wasn’t the right reason to be doing this. If he wanted to help people, he should do it for the sake of helping, not for fame or recognition. That’s a lesson that was taught to him by his honey back home. He told her about what he did and complained that they didn’t appreciate him and she shut down his worries and said that he should just feel good for doing a good thing.

Looking back, that’s how he should have done it this entire time.

And that’s how’s he’s going to do it from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for the short chapters but this is the only way I can update regularly right now! XC


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